Farming News - A Third of Dairy Farmers Consider Exiting Over Labour Shortages, Survey Shows
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A Third of Dairy Farmers Consider Exiting Over Labour Shortages, Survey Shows
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Dairy farmers are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit staff with some producers potentially being forced to leave the industry due to a lack of resource, a recent review has found.
A survey of dairy farmers conducted by the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) in December and January, found 63% of farmers struggled to recruit in the last five years. This is up from 51% in 2016 and 40% in 2014 when the RABDF last surveyed farmers using repeated polls about labour.
It is something that is of increasing concern with almost all respondents (80%) saying staff recruitment was something that worried them and almost a third (32.5%) saying they would consider leaving the industry due to a lack of dairy labour.
Employers say unsocial working hours and not enough people interested in dairy farming are two of the main reasons for people not wanting to work on dairy farms, with 28% reporting staff leaving due to unsociable working hours.
This is despite 77% of employers saying they had made changes on their farm to make the workplace more attractive. Changes included creating dedicated staff facilities; offering more time off and not working weekends; attractive house packages and pensions, for example.
The difficulty in recruiting from the domestic workforce has seen the reliance on foreign labour remain with almost half of respondents (42.1%) employing foreign workers in the last five years.
The reliance on foreign labour is concerning with access to any new foreign workers being restricted following Brexit.
RABDF Managing Director Matt Knight said: “Despite repeated calls to the Government to try and get dairy workers included on the Migration Advisory Committee’s Shortage Occupation List or included as a skilled worker, we have not had any luck in doing so. We need access to these skilled workers, especially in the short-term until longer-term solutions to the dairy labour issue are found.”
Encouragingly, half of the labour employed on dairy farms (54%) were aged between 16-34, with 75% of employees aged under 49 -well below the national average age in agriculture of 651.
Apprentices make up a valuable part of the workforce with over half (57.5%) of survey respondents employing one and 86.5% saying they would consider taking on an apprentice.
Mr Knight adds: “There is a lot of work to do around the image of dairy farming to attract new entrants and workers into the industry. From all the surveys RABDF has undertaken over the last seven years they have each highlighted a fundamental problem with the image of dairy farming. The long and unsocial hours seem to be the main limiting factors when it comes to recruiting staff on dairy farms.
“We are looking at solutions including working with land-based colleges to promote dairy specific courses and working with youth groups to promote dairy farming as a career to non-farmers for example.
“However, it is also important we consider alternative working practices to make working hours more sociable to attract more workers on to farms. We will be following this up in the coming months with industry consultation.”
Mr Knight adds: “These initiatives all take time, which is why we have again written to the MAC this month highlighting the latest survey results and requesting they reconsider including dairy workers on the MAC Shortage Occupation List or as a skilled worker.”
Summary of responses
79.4% of farmers completing the survey were farmers, the rest were farmer manager 12.4%, stock person 6.6%
More than half of those answering the survey (67.22%) had more than 250 cows, with the largest cohort having between 250-500 cows (38.5%).
94% of those applying had dairy
Almost half of respondents (42.1%) employed foreign workers on their farm
Of those employing foreign labour 74% said they did because they can’t recruit from the UK. Other reasons included their flexibility in working unsociable hours (66%) and having a better work ethic (58.5%)
Most of the labour employed by survey respondents was classed as skilled (64%), with 33% employing a mixture of skilled and unskilled labour.
Over half of labour employed ranged from aged 16-34 (54%) with 75% of employees aged under 49.
63% of respondents said they have had difficulty recruiting staff in the last five years.
Over half (58%) said it took them anywhere from four weeks to 12 weeks or longer to recruit staff
Antisocial hours and not enough people wanting to work in dairy farming were the reasons employers struggled to recruit.
80% of respondents said staff recruitment was something that worried them
32.5% said they would consider leaving the dairy industry because of a lack of labour
Social media and word of mouth were two of the main way’s farmers recruited staff, 31.3% and 29.6% respectively.
Most applicants would have some hands-on experience with cows (74%)
95% of employers offer training to staff- the majority of which consisted of training on the job and local training courses
57.5% had employed an apprentice and 86.5% said they would consider taking on an apprentice.
The main reason given for those that wouldn’t employ an apprentice was the lack of time to teach them new skills
77% said they had changed something on their farm to make it more attractive to employees
Examples includes better staff facilities; more flexible working hours; weekends off; pension schemes; house packages; new dairy parlour
31% of staff stayed employed on farms for five years or more with 61% employed for two years or more
Over a quarter (28%) of staff left due to unsociable working hours
Over 81% of employees paid their herdsperson an average wage of £26,000 or more with 12% paid over £36,000
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