Law on jobs is letting us down: Local business owners

Following on from a meeting with Economic Development Minister Lyndon Farnham and Treasury Minister Alan Maclean, Facebook lobby group Jersey Businesses In Crisis have now sent a letter urging the ministers to take action.

In March the group shared their concerns about how licences to employ non locally-qualified staff – registered workers – were being distributed by the Population Office.

There are nearly 180 jobs on the JEP’s website at the moment.

In the two-page letter the group claim the process in which licences are issued is unfair, not transparent and ‘so random it evokes memories of pin the tail on the donkey’.

It also suggests the current policy is allowing ‘potentially excellent businesses to fail’ and forcing salaries up because employers have to ‘poach’ staff from other companies because they do not have the licences to employ immigrants.

The businesses claim they have done all they can to employ local staff and take on trainees but say their hands are tied as they need to hire people with specialist skills who are not available.

The current Control of Housing and Work Law, introduced in 2013, restricts businesses to a certain number of licences which allows them to employ registered staff. Since the introduction of the law the States have cracked down on the number of licences issued.

Sue Marquis, owner of Marquis in the Market, wrote the letter on behalf of the group.

‘The way this policy is being administered is causing businesses to fail,’ she said.

‘These are our livelihoods, we are not huge companies with deep pockets. We are living through one of the worst economic crises in our history, the fact that individuals are prepared to invest and risk their own money whilst playing their part in helping the economy: employment and the good reputation of Jersey, should be a good enough reason to support them, not, as is happening across the board, make it even tougher.’

Mrs Marquis added that the Facebook group has swelled in popularity since their meeting last month.

Senator Farnham said he and Senator Maclean met with the group last month and he was working to address their concerns.

The Population Office were contacted for comment but did not respond before publication.

The introduction of registration cards in 2013 means that employers no longer have to prove the residential status of their employees.

Instead, it is their responsibility to check a new employee’s residential status on their registration card before they start work; it is their responsibility to get the card from the Social Security Department.

The registration card will show the person’s residential category. It will be one of four:

• ‘entitled’
• ‘licensed’
• ‘entitled to work’
• ‘registered’

Employers can employ anyone who is ‘entitled’ or ‘entitled to work’ but they must have permission to employ anyone who is ‘licensed’ or ‘registered’.

they must check every new employee’s card. When an employer views an employee’s registration card, they should also:

• ask for photo identification
• take a photocopy of the registration card and photo identification for your records
• check the registration card is in date

Dear Mr Farnham

We refer to our group meeting of 22 March 2015.

We would firstly like to thank both yourself and Mr. Maclean for attending.

It is has now been almost four weeks since the meeting so we would like to recap on the main issues raised and the points which you advised you were taking forward:

1. The difficulty of small businesses obtaining licences. It was suggested all private business should be entitled to at least one licence, we feel that we should be granted licences in proportion to the amount of people employed e.g.. 1:5 but one would help!
2. The inequity in the way licences are issued i.e. similar businesses being granted licences whilst others aren’t, it is currently discriminatory and random. There is no transparency as to who have been granted licences and how many, and reasons for refusal are often vague, and appear so random as to evoke memories of ‘pin the tail on the donkey’.
3. The time taken for both Regulation of Undertakings and the Population Office to make decisions: both staff and contracts lost during the time application considered e.g. one meeting attendee lost a £100,000 contract owing to this.
4. General rudeness and unhelpfulness of Population Office: several examples were given at the meeting, a further one I have been told about is by lady who wanted a licence to employ a hair stylist for her new business. After explaining her request she asked for the form and a lady said to her “are you looking for a brain surgeon then? ” as she was handed a form she was told ” well if you want to waste your ink”. There was scarcely a person in the small cross section of attendees who didn’t have a similar story, me included.
5. The manner and time taken in which the panel deal with appeals: you heard 2 employers give their stories: 1 who was ‘interrogated by a panel of 8 and left feeling traumatised and like a criminal, the other sat before a panel of 5 who, with no comprehension of the needs of his business, told him who he should employ. You also heard at the meeting that appeals can take as long as 2 months to be addressed-what potential employee can afford to be out of work that length of time or employer without a key worker?
6. The fact that small businesses rely heavily on key workers with the skill sets our businesses need, we cannot afford to carry people and often don’t have the skill set ourselves to train others. These people are not unemployed or at least, not for long and unlikely to be registered as unemployed. We need to be able to choose who is the most suitable person for the position on offer and who will bring the most to our business: they are fundamental to the success of our businesses. People who do not want to work, are not presentable and in the case of public facing staff: without a good command of the English language, are without the skills required to fulfil the role. They can ruin our reputations and bring our businesses down. If we are to attain excellent standards and reputations we must have the right people for the role.
7. Business are closing because of the lack of entitled to work skilled staff: several places were mentioned during the meeting
8. Without exception, attendees said that they took trainees where they could, took Trident students, supported the Unemployment policies: but we need these key workers in order to be able to take trainees, be trained ourselves and open new opportunities for youngsters and grow our businesses. Small businesses often do not have the resources or skills to train new staff and have to ‘ hit the ground running’ whilst building up their business, especially with new enterprises.
9. By not coming into our businesses when applications are received, the Population Office is ignorant of our individual needs, the standard of our businesses. The current method of selection for licences is allowing potentially excellent businesses to fail whilst supporting mediocrity and is limiting free enterprise. They are making decisions based on the number of licences issued in a particular industry in proportion to how many they consider are needed for the population ratio who use it. I have seen evidence of this in a letter shown to me from the Population Office. This does not take into consideration: who set up their business first: the standard of that business: the amount that business does in the way of training others etc etc.
10. The current policy is forcing salaries up, creating a situation whereby the only way to get good staff where there is a shortage of key skills within the ‘entitled to work’ market, is by ‘poaching’ off other businesses, offering a better package etc. None of us want this and are not comfortable doing it, we are all just trying to survive but what choice do we have?
11. Attendees suggested that better way of controlling the population might be that before Regulation of Undertakings grant permission for a new business and allowing us to pour our money, time and effort into it: consider at that point whether that area of the island needs another cafe, restaurant, hair salon, florist etc.: not. As is currently the situation, grant permission to operate and then prevent us from choosing the best key employees for the job, who are vital to the success of a private enterprise.

Whilst we all appreciate and understand the need for regulation, the way this policy is being administered is causing businesses to fail, these are our livelihoods, we are not huge companies with deep pockets. We are living through one of the worst economic crises in our history, the fact that individuals are prepared to invest and risk their own money whilst playing their part in helping the economy: employment and the good reputation of Jersey, should be a good enough reason to support them, not, as is happening across the board, make it even tougher.

We look forward to hearing of your progress on the issues you were taking forward on our behalf and about the meeting you were going to set up between our group and the Population Office. It would be interesting at least to see how they feel at being questioned by an 8:1 person group!

Lastly, since our meeting, our group has increased by more than 50 people to 84.

Yours sincerely

Sue Marquis