Research from the Focus on Labour Exploitation (Flex) has revealed that foreign workers who travel to the UK for seasonal work are compelled to take out loans to pay for their upfront expenses, which leaves them in debt. Foreign seasonal workers who qualify for the Seasonal Worker Scheme take out loans without knowing how much money they will be able to make in the UK, said Flex, an organisation dedicated to ending labour exploitation. Later on, individuals find themselves in a challenging predicament since they constantly worry about their ability to repay the loan. The research from Flex has revealed that around 75 percent of foreign seasonal workers who entered the UK for work purposes under the Seasonal Worker Scheme borrowed an average of over $1,500 to cover their upfront costs. In addition to this, the research further found out that some foreign seasonal workers also paid brokers to arrange their jobs for them, adding to their costs. As shown in the research, these problems mainly come due to the foreign workers’ uncertainty about the wages they will receive in the UK. Over 500 percent of foreign workers who took part in Flex’s survey said that they did not have specific information on how many hours they would work and how much they would make, the Financial Times explains. Additionally, in their interviews for the research, the foreign workers said that they were shown work contracts in another language and the conditions did not always match what they signed before entering the UK. Concerned about the situation, Flex stressed that foreign workers should not have to worry about the financial cost of entering the UK. The same stressed that the government needs to list more countries whose citizens are eligible for seasonal work.

Flex Has Also Raised Concerns About Foreigner Workers’ Exploitation

In addition to the above-mentioned, flex also raised concerns about the risk of foreign workers’ exploitation. As Flex notes, traffickers can take advantage of the vulnerabilities of people and try to control them. The same disclosed that a number of workers have said to be afraid to report mistreatment as they feared losing their jobs. Due to this, Flex has called on the authorities to introduce stringent rules to protect the rights of workers, especially marginalized groups.