Skills shortages holding back the UK's economic recovery

[GlenSausio]

There's no shortage of immigrants where I work, infact the pretty much 100% Indian nationals on work permits.

They have had a great effect on the company, the company is now pretty much bankrupt due to poor productivity, and I'd be surprised if it still exists in a couple of years time.

This is bad news. Sorry to hear of this.

Is the problem simply the skill level of the imported workers? There are certainly some very highly skilled indian body shoppers - has your company gone for cheap ones?

[original PM]

I do not think there is a skill shortage

I think there is a shortage of people willing to work for peanuts after spending thousands on being trained.

[DimPrawn]

This is bad news. Sorry to hear of this.

Is the problem simply the skill level of the imported workers? There are certainly some very highly skilled indian body shoppers - has your company gone for cheap ones?

Some have great skills and knowledge, but mostly they are uninterested and only do "exactly" what you ask of them, zero iniative, zero interest, zero creativity.

It's like trying to get something useful out of Siri...

[vetran]

This is an interesting topic. Why? because it relates to UK immigration policies and corporate hiring methods.

There is a great deal of whining about a shortage of skills in the UK with blame being apportioned to the education system. Lip service is given about apprenticeships and getting more women into IT and engineering (anything that gets them out of HR would be a good thing).. It just is not going to happen in the short term or even medium term if at all.

The UK is not the finite limit of the skills markets from which employers can recruit. There is the whole EU. Commentators are ignoring this. Though there are many many thousands of workers here from eastern europe very few are from the high end skills spectrum of the market (which is the market we should really be open to)

It is a matter of cost and competence of hiring regimes. Many of these companies want to be able to hire Indian engineers and programmers. Why when there are thousands of Poles, italians, Spaniards, Romanians eligible to work here would they need to ? It is because Indians are cheap and easy to find and hire. As companies wont pay decent salaries to engineers according to market forces they discourage the brightest students to study STEM subjects (the brightest don't work in engineering they work in the city or retail or consultancy)

IT is one of the better paid sciences and employers have got round the cost problems through "shoring" (near, far and off!). They must not be allowed to open the floodgates to non EU residents for other STEM disciplines.

Honestly much of the skill shortages are down to businesses failing to support and use their existing staff well.

Not much of what I do is rocket science and much of it could be done by a motivated person of reasonable intelligence. My peers are similar.There is skill and basic knowledge but considering the ability demonstrated by many of my colleagues abroad a good waiter could do it, its organisation, memory and politeness.

Yes they all want experts in C++,C# and SQL to make us world beaters. But most of the work is reading specs and herding people into reading the manual or listening in the training, that includes the people designing the solutions.

[vetran]

I do not think there is a skill shortage

I think there is a shortage of people willing to work for peanuts after spending thousands on being trained.

spot on

[vetran]

This is bad news. Sorry to hear of this.

Is the problem simply the skill level of the imported workers? There are certainly some very highly skilled indian body shoppers - has your company gone for cheap ones?

we too suffer, quality varies tremendously and the culture & language barrier slows everything.

[VectraMan]

You forgot to add that employers don't believe in paying to train staff now so are using the government to subsidise their training budgets.

I've never been trained in anything, except at school and university. I'm sure a lot of us would say the same.

If companies hire useless people from abroad and ruin everything as a result, then that does support the idea that there's a skills shortage. What's better for the company? Cheap foreign useless workers, or expensive British useless workers?

[vetran]

What's better for the bosses bonuses? Cheap foreign useless workers, or expensive British useless workers?

FTFY

[DimPrawn]

I've never been trained in anything, except at school and university. I'm sure a lot of us would say the same.

If companies hire useless people from abroad and ruin everything as a result, then that does support the idea that there's a skills shortage. What's better for the company? Cheap foreign useless workers, or expensive British useless workers?

The only thing they measure is the cost. How many can we get for X. A bigger team is a better team!

[SueEllen]

I've never been trained in anything, except at school and university. I'm sure a lot of us would say the same.

So you have never had on the job training? There hasn't been a more experienced person who has showed you how to do stuff? That is training.

However if as a company you sack all your experienced workers, who tend to be older, then you can't do that.

If companies hire useless people from abroad and ruin everything as a result, then that does support the idea that there's a skills shortage. What's better for the company? Cheap foreign useless workers, or expensive British useless workers?

Neither.

Part of the skills shortage they are complaining about is there is no-one who will work permanently for and stay long term with employers who treat their staff like tulip.