But there’s also shortages of the same workers in all EU countries. Why, if all those workers have gone home? Are you happy to add to the shortages in other countries by poaching their workers? Very selfish, I must say. The only answer is to grow our own but as long as EU workers can be exploited by others, that’s not going to happen any time soon. Employers would rather go for the cheap quick fix rather than take a long term view of things. Are there any trainee tradesmen on four year apprenticeship programmes these days like there used to be when I left school. No chance, Blair wanted everyone to go to university, didn’t he and now we have the most highly qualified people we've ever had serving us our Maccy D's and fetching our Argos purchases.