Reply to: Firms urged to hire UK unemployed not foreign workers

[xoggoth]

There will never be an exact match of jobs to candidates but shortage drives wages higher and more people enter the field. If they see there are no openings and the wages are low they don't bother to acquire the skills. That's the way the free market works. If employers can hire abroad before they suffer the slightest inconvenience they are destroying the entire dynamic and creating the very lack of skills that they complain about. Easy access to immigration has to be stopped.

There is a case for temporary use of migrant workers to plug temporary shortages provided that when there are no shortages they should return home. They are not citizens and were paid for the jobs they did, we have no further duties towards them. Because of our lax residency and welfare rules they do not.

Another thing some seem to assume is that all these chavs with low skills and poor work ethic are white Brits. They are not, check out the qualifications and welfare stats on the ONS for some major ethnic groups. This is a big elephant in the room. If all these former migrants and decendants of migrants were so industrious and useful to us, at what point and why did it all go so badly wrong for them?

The reality is that while some have useful skills, the presence of any minority inevitably attracts many others who do not. We have seen that with the rights for Ghurkas. Excellent chaps no doubt but in its wake there was such a huge influx of Nepalese students and "students" that visas had to be temporarily suspended.

[xoggoth]

There will never be an exact match of jobs to candidates but shortage drives wages higher and more people enter the field. If they see there are no openings and the wages are low they don't bother to acquire the skills. That's the way the free market works. If employers can hire abroad before they suffer the slightest inconvenience they are destroying the entire dynamic and creating the very lack of skills that they complain about. Easy access to immigration has to be stopped.

There is a good case for hiring of migrants workers to plug temporary shortages provided that when there are no shortages they should return home. They are not citizens and were paid for the jobs they did, we have no further duties towards them. Because of our lax residency and welfare rules they do not but remain and compete for scarce positions. This is a no win situation for us, if they get jobs they exclude our own but if they do not then resentment leads to criminality. Large numbers of unemployed young men are no asset to any society.

Another thing some seem to assume is that all these chavs with a poor work ethic are white Brits. They are not, check out the stats for crime and welfare on the ONS for some major ethnic groups. This is a big elephant in the room. If all these former migrants and decendants of migrants were so industrious and useful to us, at what point and why did it all go so badly wrong for them?

[doodab]

While you are at it cancel all work permits, only recruit from the EU its big enough

Indeed and there are plenty of skilled people. Some will argue you'll see wage inflation pushing up costs and making UK PLC less competitive, however that's a bit of a spurious argument as it hasn't held our banking sector back has it?

Perhaps now banking is on the wane all those "brightest and best" graddies and postgrads can move into other industries and provide us with a productivity boost just when we need it most.

[vetran]

Gordon Brown wanted cheap labour to stop wage inflation and unlike our European neighbours opened our job market to all the new countries joining Europe.

So a great number of highly intelligent people seeing a great opportunity to earn a significant amount of money their wages were one seventh of the UK average, moved to the UK. Have to admire them just like the Brits who went in their thousands (not their millions) to Saudi in the seventies.

The difference is our new colleagues are likely to be highly qualified in their own countries and they are willing to do menial jobs for 3-7 times the salary they could earn at home plus of course benefits that are higher than they could earn at home.

So to employers offer UK candidates £225,000 to wait tables and I'm pretty sure they will turn up with a smile on their face!

The answer is to defer free movement for 7 years like other countries come on IDS!

While you are at it cancel all work permits, only recruit from the EU its big enough

[minestrone]

I was watching The World at War recently (excellent documentary, though not really utilising the benefits of blu-ray) and IIRC the Germans got the unemployed to build the autobahns.

Forced East European labour and if the mix of hard digging work & poor diet did not kill them the Nazis did it with a bullet if they refused to shovel.

[doodab]

That's what they're doing today. My brother was on a self-drive touring holiday in Germany a month or two ago, and he said practically every autobahn in the country is down to one or two lanes, with armies of workers resurfacing them (or whatever they have to do to get them in tip-top condition for their usual 200 MPH driving).

That's because the Germans used their "economic stimulus" to build useful stuff, while we used it to keep estate agents in jobs. It does making driving to Stuttgart a pain though.

[OwlHoot]

I was watching The World at War recently (excellent documentary, though not really utilising the benefits of blu-ray) and IIRC the Germans got the unemployed to build the autobahns. ..

That's what they're doing today. My brother was on a self-drive touring holiday in Germany a month or two ago, and he said practically every autobahn in the country is down to one or two lanes, with armies of workers resurfacing them (or whatever they have to do to get them in tip-top condition for their usual 200 MPH driving).

[d000hg]

Alternatively, make the dole dossers do community work rather than laze at home watching Jeremy "well, well, well" Kyle.

I was watching The World at War recently (excellent documentary, though not really utilising the benefits of blu-ray) and IIRC the Germans got the unemployed to build the autobahns.

I thought such a scheme was already suggested, or even agreed?

[Support Monkey]

Talk about bolt the door when the horse is well and truly gone, they should have said this 10 years ago not now, its way to late to make a difference

[PAH]

Why not legalise cannabis and let them grow their own organic variety. No need for them to leave the house then.

If they concoct anything illegal, just lock them in, home prisons are the future now we have electronic tagging.

It's the simplest ideas that work.

[gingerjedi]

Just let people work on the side and claim modest benefits, let them grow weed in their lofts too.

No job at that level will pay enough to live on without some sort of subsidy, time to be realistic.

[rd409]

Oh and another thing. If you want British people to work, don't pay them benefits not to.

Benefits should ramp down every month. You get 100% on day 1 and lose 5% of them each month you are not working.

DP for PM.

You'll get my vote just for that.

[DodgyAgent]

Alternatively, make the dole dossers do community work rather than laze at home watching Jeremy "well, well, well" Kyle.

I was watching The World at War recently (excellent documentary, though not really utilising the benefits of blu-ray) and IIRC the Germans got the unemployed to build the autobahns.

Looks like a solution for those wanting those high speed rail links between london and the north.

And they can be fed on British Rail sandwiches

[doodab]

Looks like a solution for those wanting those high speed rail links between london and the north.

So what you are suggesting is that instead of endless public enquiries and expensive compulsory purchase schemes we simply unleash the doleys like a plague of locusts stripping the earth bare, laying waste to local economies and encouraging people living along the route to sell up at knock down prices?

It might just work.

[PAH]

Alternatively, make the dole dossers do community work rather than laze at home watching Jeremy "well, well, well" Kyle.

I was watching The World at War recently (excellent documentary, though not really utilising the benefits of blu-ray) and IIRC the Germans got the unemployed to build the autobahns.

Looks like a solution for those wanting those high speed rail links between london and the north.