The (Indian) FTV's are growing

[Buffoon]

Flippant remarks aside, the domestic costs profile of an indigenous worker prohibits the reduction to the same wages of those in the third world. The cost of housing, for the youngsters - student loans, taxation, etc, none of these are borne by work permit labour.

Claims that the skills are not available in the UK are the basis for using overseas workers, not that domestic workers are too expensive. However, we know that these skills are in abundance. Nearly every day on this board we hear of someone struggling to find work because they are not ‘perfect’. It doesn’t apply to me any more but, for example, I would struggle to get work because I am over 45.

The whole issue is fraudulent from top to bottom. Furthermore, the New Labour government is complicit with this fraud. There are deep links with some of the companies benefiting from use of cheap overseas labour and the New Labour Party for example Capita.

It is also setting up long term problems for the economy. Why would someone want to invest in their skills if there is no possibility of getting a return on that investment? A youngster would be a fool to study computer science at university as they will leave with huge debts and a career not long enough or well paid enough to ever repay those loans.

[XLMonkey]

The problem with that scenario is that most of the UK has debts based on their incomes.
If everybody has to compete by droping their income demands then they will not be able to service their debts.
They will then have to sell thier houses and the market will crash.

How can it be good for the economy?
If I can't get my high rate I can't buy my next Porsche. The Porsche garage will have to lay off some of its staff so they will no longer be able to afford to shop at Booths. The trickle down will be catastrophic.

We can only subscribe to a global economy if it is available globally. Currently it is not.

Because not everyone has to drop their incomes.

All these people in India start earning more money and think to themselves, "I fancy one of those nice Dyson's that everyone's raving about." Dyson makes a bit of coin and ('cos its cheaper to make them in China) he starts creating lots of (high paying) product design and development jobs in the UK.

Joe down the road gets a job as a product designer and decides to blow the cash on a new Porsche.

Meanwhile, you either
- don't buy the Porsche and get a Mondeo instead, or
- get skills that the Indian's don't have (there aren't that many with 20 years experience of managing major IT change programmes out there) and get a contract implementing an all-singing all dancing ERP platform for the new global Dyson business. Where you so happen to be looking after a bunch of cheap Indian programmers.

Then, all these Indian programmers think to themselves....

[Buffoon]

....there aren't that many with 20 years experience ....

Because people are culled when they get to have 4 or 5 years experience and replace with cheaper labour.

[hattra]

No, they haven't (although they have only grown very very slowly).

For the UK (page 4), from 1970 to 2001
http://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/users/n...bourMarket.pdf

and from 2001 to 2006 (you need to download the CSV file)

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBAS...t.asp?vlnk=392

Nice little graph on inflation near the beginning. !974-6 ish - inflation hit 30%. I remember the election campaign around then - Old Liebour were claiming that inflation was only 8%, and the Tories outraged everybody when they said it was closer to 22% - it seems they dramatically underestimated things. Thatcher got handed an economy in absolute tatters.

Of course New Liebour will shortly arrive at the same destination, but by a different route.

[XLMonkey]

If it were a level playing field then I agree XL monkey.

Sadly, when BT imports 10,000 Indian nationals onto projects in the UK via an Intra Company transfer visa running for 6 months, it is able to pay them a small fraction of the UK wage, as the Indian Nationals are not liable to pay any UK income taxes, as they are resident abroad and non-domiciled for tax purposes. What they earn goes straight in their pockets. They can also buy books, training in the UK and claim all the VAT back when they leave. No UK permie can do this.

If this were possible for all UK based workers, funnily enough they would be a LOT cheaper to hire and could compete.

On this I agree, but to me that's an argument for reform of the tax system, not restrictions on the labour market. Its an outrage that employers have to pay a disproportionately high NI contribution for low income staff compared to higher income staff (10% on salaries up to higher rate, then 1% thereafter). It creates a distorted job market in the UK and is high compared with other countries (not just India).

[Euro-commuter]

It is also setting up long term problems for the economy. Why would someone want to invest in their skills if there is no possibility of getting a return on that investment? A youngster would be a fool to study computer science at university as they will leave with huge debts and a career not long enough or well paid enough to ever repay those loans.

I was trying to make that point too. It's a one-way process, give away the jobs and nobody will train for them any more.

[XLMonkey]

Claims that the skills are not available in the UK are the basis for using overseas workers, not that domestic workers are too expensive. However, we know that these skills are in abundance. Nearly every day on this board we hear of someone struggling to find work because they are not ‘perfect’. It doesn’t apply to me any more but, for example, I would struggle to get work because I am over 45.

There's definitely some hypocrisy about it - a skills shortage just means that it costs a lot to get hold of them - so "skills shortage" and "domestic workers are too expensive" actually mean the same thing.

But... that doesn't mean that we're all on the slagheap either, or that getting older means that you can't get work as a contractor. For example, the attached survey from 2005 shows that the % of interims in work didn't vary by very much across age categories.

http://www.russam-gms.com/documents/...e%202006%2Epdf

Although I would definitely agree that the kinds of contract available change as you get older (not sure I would want a project analyst contract any more, even if I could persuade someone to offer it to me).

[The Lone Gunman]

Because not everyone has to drop their incomes.

All these people in India start earning more money and think to themselves, "I fancy one of those nice Dyson's that everyone's raving about." Dyson makes a bit of coin and ('cos its cheaper to make them in China) he starts creating lots of (high paying) product design and development jobs in the UK.

Joe down the road gets a job as a product designer and decides to blow the cash on a new Porsche.

Meanwhile, you either
- don't buy the Porsche and get a Mondeo instead, or
- get skills that the Indian's don't have (there aren't that many with 20 years experience of managing major IT change programmes out there) and get a contract implementing an all-singing all dancing ERP platform for the new global Dyson business. Where you so happen to be looking after a bunch of cheap Indian programmers.

Then, all these Indian programmers think to themselves....

Couple of problems there XL.
A lot of the consumer goods are being sold in India at Indian rates, certainly cheaper than UK, but I cant source them from India.
Mr Dyson and his friends at IBM, MicroShaft et al are all busy setting up R&D centres in foreign lands so the design jobs are going there too.

I have had this doom laden scenario in my head for a while and every day it gets closer.
Every job that does not require customer facing or on site presence is being farmed out to the cheapest provider. I can not compete on cost because of the overheads I have been saddled with.
NL are happily fiddling while Rome burns.

[XLMonkey]

I was trying to make that point too. It's a one-way process, give away the jobs and nobody will train for them any more.

Nope, the stats don't back you up on this. Investment in education and training does pay off, particularly at degree level.

http://www.mmu.ac.uk/news/news_item.php?id=579

And the jobs must be coming from somewhere, since there are 15% more than there were last year

http://www.agr.org.uk/news/agr_in_the_news/id.62.html

But, I do think that the profile of those jobs is changing - purely technical skills are becoming increasingly commoditised (and hence cheaper) and the demand for more management and organisation skills seems to be replacing them in the UK. But, again, that doesn't make a case for labour market controls, it makes a case for investing in new skills.

[XLMonkey]

Couple of problems there XL.
A lot of the consumer goods are being sold in India at Indian rates, certainly cheaper than UK, but I cant source them from India.

err, isn't that exactly what the OP was talking about - sourcing Indian staff at Indian rates and bringing them to the UK?

Mr Dyson and his friends at IBM, MicroShaft et al are all busy setting up R&D centres in foreign lands so the design jobs are going there too.

Job migration happens in reverse as well. E.g. Tata now employs somewhere around 5000 people in the UK (up from about 200 people 10 years ago). This is where the foreign direct investment money goes - on creating more jobs (although some of those jobs are for merchant bankers, so its not all good news).