The Highlands are facing a recruitment crisis because of a dramatic fall in migrant labour.

The number of applications approved for Eastern Europeans to work in the Highlands and Islands dropped by almost a third last year, with the agricultural sector suffering most.

Many came to Scotland to work as fruit pickers, like the woman pictured left in Perthshire, but higher living costs combined with an improving economy in Eastern Europe have spurred them to return home.

According to figures from Highlands and Islands Enterprise, 1,960 applications from eastern Europeans for the Government's worker registration scheme were approved between April and December 2006. Over the same period last year only 1,530 were approved - a drop of 28 per cent.

Roz Watson, manager at HALS, an Inverness recruitment agency specialising in finding agricultural work for migrants, said: “Not long ago people from Poland could only earn 10 per cent at home of what they could earn here, but they can earn a lot more at home now and have less disposable income here. Poland is beginning to look a lot more attractive to them.”

Jack McConnell, the former First Minister, called on the Scottish government to reverse the trend.

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