[user104658]

Originally Posted by Livia

No to slave labour. Yes to employing unemployed people in this country. The farmers will have to pay a living wage and unemployed people will have to take the jobs. Imagine... the consternation on both sides there.

In THEORY this shouldn't be a problem under Universal Credit (where you can get a seasonal job and then the UC payments come back in automatically as soon as employment ends). In theory. If they ever get the system working as intended.

I completely understand unemployed people not taking seasonal jobs under the old / for some still current system, though. When I was seeking employment there no WAY I would have considered a non-permanent contract... because it can be a nightmare getting unemployment payments back afterwards, and people end up with literally zero income for 3+ months. This is how debt spirals start and people end up homeless... and is of course, part of the problem that Universal Credit was supposed to address.

And this is the main problem with employing an adequate number of fruit / veg pickers: We need A LOT of them, but only for a couple of months a year. The job is actually generally pretty well paid, but it works on the basis that people come in, make good money for a few weeks, then move on... it sort of CAN'T work any other way. I get why there's a problem.

[edit to add]

TBH a good solution (that I'm sure many won't like on the grounds of something-or-other) would be to simply make it a "proper employment exception" situation... let unemployed people (or even employed people who have time to do so) just do it cash in hand . No affect on benefits (for unemployed) and tax free (for otherwise employed).