By Kerry Maxwell, communications manager, British Poultry Council
I’m tired of linguistic dead ends. There is nothing I dislike more than when I see language being used to close a conversation rather than open one.
“Skilled must mean skilled” is the latest addition to a long list of soundbites I’m not impressed by. Kind of like “Brexit means Brexit” or “Levelling Up”: easy to chant, hard to challenge.
I find phrases like these rely on this unspoken assumption of agreement while avoiding uncomfortable questions about who decides, who benefits, and what gets lost in the process.
Boring!
Following the release of Government’s Immigration White Paper, the question on my mind right now is whether a perceived overreliance on international labour can be addressed by better aligning immigration and domestic skills development.
I would say yes, and that it makes sense, but only if we’re honest about two things:
- That emphasis on skills alone won’t solve structural workforce issues.
- That immigration can never be a neutral discussion: it is one that has (and continues to) shape and restrict who gets to contribute to our economy.
We all know businesses need to rapidly upskill to keep pace with changes driven by automation and artificial intelligence (AI). What that doesn’t address is the myth that we have to choose between skills investment and immigration reform. Really, we need both, at different points of the supply chain, urgently and unapologetically.
Rather than asking “how do we get more people into work” or making bold statements about what “building a world-class workforce” looks like, I think we need to centre a “skills-for-what?” dialogue.
Because when we ask “skills for what?” we are forced to look at the kind of economy we want to build, the sort of growth we want to achieve, and, ultimately who it is all actually for.
I think we all know that this conversation isn’t just about plugging gaps in the labour market. It’s about shaping work that has value, direction, and a sense of accountability. We want to be an industry that supports the kind of work and workforce that we actually need.
The longer everyone hangs onto linguistic dead ends like “skilled means skilled,” the harder it becomes to rethink what true “productivity” and “efficiency” look like, in poultry meat and beyond.
But if we’re willing to confront this complexity and ask “skills for what?” with honesty and curiosity, there’s real potential here – to look at how roles are evolving across supply chains, to explore what employment looks like in a climate-conscious economy, and whether our current definitions of “productivity” and “efficiency” even make sense in the long run.