Can You Still Do a Ski Season After Brexit?

Post-Brexit, finding seasonal work in the Alps can be a challenge. Sam Haddad looks at the options doing a ski season after Brexit.

Introduction

Working a ski or snowboard season in the Alps has long been a rite of passage for thousands of young British people.

For most of them, it becomes a life-defining experience, kickstarting or cementing an obsessive love of skiing and snowboarding they most likely still harbour today. New friendships are forged and a level of inner confidence you can only get from living in another country for the first time in your late teens or twenties.

Ski seasons are incredibly helpful career-wise. You get to practise a foreign language regularly and learn invaluable business and customer service skills, says Iain Martin of the Ski Podcast.

“Many people working in the industry today honed those skills doing seasons, and subsequently went on to set up businesses that have been successful,” he says.

This is backed up by research from the trade organisation, Seasonal Businesses in Travel (SBIT), which found that 49% of industry leaders started their careers with an overseas season. People who do seasons will often be ski and snowboard trip regulars for life, having an outsized economic impact on the snow travel industry moving forward.

But Brexit has undeniably thrown a spanner in the works – at least in the short term. When we left the European Union on 31st January 2020, one of the things we forfeited was our right to work in Europe and stay beyond 90 days. According to data from SBIT, before the 2016 referendum around 25,000 British people did seasonal work in France – a huge chunk of those in ski resorts. And those figures are likely to be even higher as they don’t include informal work.

Today, ski businesses in the Alps look to find workers with EU passports. Irish citizens, British people with dual citizenship, or Swedish, Danish, or Dutch workers (as they speak fluent English and understand the ski market).

What are your options for doing a ski season after Brexit?

Ski season in Japan or Canada

Can you still do a ski season in the EU?

British people can still find work in the Alps, but it varies from country to country, and cross-border work – such as being a transfer driver in France that picks passengers up from Geneva in Switzerland – doesn’t appear to be currently possible. Working in Austria and Italy is not easy – a quick browse on Interski for resort jobs in Italy shows only positions for EU passport holders – but there is a system in France, which is now online and easier for ski companies to navigate.

Here’s how that works:
Ski businesses in France need to advertise a job for a certain amount of time, then if no suitable French or EU candidates apply (some firms are getting around this by advertising jobs that require native English speakers), they can open it up to British workers.

The company then needs to secure the employee a work visa and employ them on their official French payroll (which is more expensive than British payroll). It’s a significant set of hurdles to jump through, and one of the reasons why chalets – and therefore chalet holidays – have been largely phased out by the big tour operators, though luxury high end offerings have been less affected as they can absorb the extra costs.

Seeking informal work under your own steam, as opposed to through an agency – be that babysitting, cleaning, DJing or being a handyperson (jobs which have sustained many a seasonnaire over the years) – is no longer possible, as you need an employer to process your essential visa. Failing to
have the right paperwork, the SBIT warns, could see you in “deep water and possibly even banned from entering any EU country in the future”.

Aside from the all-essential visa, the advantage of securing work through a ski operator is that it will often include accommodation, which is getting increasingly hard to find in the more popular Alpine ski resorts due to the rise of second home ownership and Airbnb.

Our top tips for doing a ski season

1. Consider ski resorts that are further afield, such as those in Canada or Japan, where getting a working visa may be more straightforward.

2. In Europe, France is the best option for UK workers. However, you will need to secure a visa via your prospective employer.

3. Seek employment directly through ski businesses. Do this as early as possible before the season starts.

4. Lobby your MP to make it easier for young British people to do seasonal work in Europe. It is an experience that can set them up for life.

5. Do it! You won’t regret it.

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