Concerns are growing about potential labour shortages in agriculture, stemming from the migrant issue. But claims that crops are rotting all over do not accurately represent the challenge and risks in agricultural labour.
There are isolated cases of labour challenges (and I am not attempting to minimise the problems faced by those affected), but the broader sector seems resilient.
In fact, in the second quarter of 2026, agricultural jobs were at 944,000, up 4% from a year ago. This captures part of the period in which the migration discourse had begun and shows that the agricultural labour market remained robust.
We discuss this in detail in this episode of AgriView here:
