UKG's New Immigration Policy

[Corky Smeek]

The UKG have announced its new post-Brexit immigration rules. It will be a points based system which is designed to ensure that only only qualified and skilled people gain entry to the UK. The rules will apply to all people seeking to move to the UK for work, including EU citizens. This, despite Leave UK promising, during the Brexit Referendum, that such rules would not apply to EU citizens who it said would be treated no less favourably than before.

This seems like utter madness to me. Successful economies need people to work in the full range of jobs not just those that require higher level skills and knowledge. Our care, agricultural, food and manufacturing sectors have come to rely on immigrant workers. How they will survive without them is anyone's guess.

I really fail to see what good can become of this and I was just wondering if others could see any benefits that I haven't.

[Bystander1]

At least Nicola Murrel and her fellow witches and her hangerson would not qualify for a visa so there is a major benefit for starters.

[Goodfellers]

No reason for any unemployment. That must be good news.

[Gronnuck]

The new immigration policy as outlined this morning is a disaster waiting to happen. The hospitality industry in Scotland is dependent upon immigrant workers as is the growing care industry. These are jobs that our own people don’t want to do; they are careers that are beneath them since having gained their degrees in media studies, down-slope drainage and golf course management.

[Goodfellers]

The new immigration policy as outlined this morning is a disaster waiting to happen. The hospitality industry in Scotland is dependent upon immigrant workers as is the growing care industry. These are jobs that our own people don’t want to do; they are careers that are beneath them since having gained their degrees in media studies, down-slope drainage and golf course management.

Having never been unemployed, I'm not so sure how the system works, but I thought if you were offered a job (over qualified or not) you had to take it? Maybe that was in the 'olden' days. Anyone know for definite?

[Corky Smeek]

No reason for any unemployment. That must be good news.

I don't understand how that would work. Are you advocating that people be forced into jobs they don't want to do? Before Brexit a great many of the jobs that people didn't want to do were filled by immigrant workers. They were there willingly and the vast majority were good and valued employees. Post-Brexit those jobs still exist but now there is no-one willing to do them. Employers should not be in a position where they are left with no choice but to recruit unsuitable and/or unwilling employees. It may solve unemployment in the short term but it will do nothing for long term business sustainability.

[Goodfellers]

So were these jobs filled by mobile workers who are constantly moving? (I doubt that is the correct term, but most will know what I mean)

My understanding is EU citizens who are here and working can stay. I'm sure that applies to anyone coming here until the end of the year. So, if the workers are here and like living in Scotland, why leave and give up a job?

[Corky Smeek]

So were these jobs filled by mobile workers who are constantly moving? (I doubt that is the correct term, but most will know what I mean)

My understanding is EU citizens who are here and working can stay. I'm sure that applies to anyone coming here until the end of the year. So, if the workers are here and like living in Scotland, why leave and give up a job?

Not all of these jobs are for seasonal/transient workers but a great many are. They are vital to many sectors of the economy - agriculture, tourism, food production. There is significant anecdotal evidence to suggest that employers cannot fill such vacancies with UK workers.
I just cannot get my head around why the UKG thinks jeopardising industrial sectors makes sense at a time when we are going to have to forge new trade deals with, basically everybody.

As to why people might "leave and give up a job", I think the fairly hostile approach taken by the right wing MSM on the subject of immigration has driven people away from the UK. And quite frankly, I don't blame them for going.

[Goodfellers]

Some good news anounced along side this visa story https://caithness-business.co.uk/article/10310

When I was younger, I had a few friends who were lucky enough to go off fruit picking, some to France and some to Australia. It seems it's still possible for people to do this in reverse, I hope many foreign youngsters might take up this idea and come for a working holiday. I hope, if the scheme works more will be allowed in on six month working visas.

[Corky Smeek]

Whilst that is good news, so far as it goes, it seems a shame that the UKG is having to do this when the arrangements under the EU practically guaranteed farmers and growers a supply of labour. There is no real commitment to continuing this new arrangement over the long term. It is only a pilot scheme and that will do little to encourage investment.

It still leaves all the other sectors that have relied upon foreign labour in a very precarious position.

[Alrock]

...MSM...

Excuse my ignorance but who or what is this MSM that you keep refering to? I'm assuming it is not Methylsulfonylmethane as Google (http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=MSM) suggests.

[Corky Smeek]

MSM = Main Stream Media.

[Alrock]

MSM = Main Stream Media.

Thank you for the clarification.

[orkneycadian]

Excuse my ignorance but who or what is this MSM that you keep refering to? I'm assuming it is not Methylsulfonylmethane as Google (http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=MSM) suggests.

Apparently, it's a term used by a select cluster of about 4 on here.

[orkneycadian]

The new immigration policy as outlined this morning is a disaster waiting to happen. The hospitality industry in Scotland is dependent upon immigrant workers as is the growing care industry. These are jobs that our own people don’t want to do; they are careers that are beneath them since having gained their degrees in media studies, down-slope drainage and golf course management.

There's a simple answer to that. If you can't get the job that you want, then you get tje job that you can. And you do all that you can to keep it. Being on benefits and bring economically inactive should not be a lifestyle choice.

[Corky Smeek]

In a few short months EU citizens will no longer have the right to live and work in the UK. If they decide they do want to live and work here then they will be required to satisfy certain strict criteria before being granted a visa. As a result, many employers across those sectors of the economy previously mentioned, will be faced with huge difficulties in recruiting suitable staff.

It is not sufficient for people to say it will solve unemployment problems or that people should get whatever job they can. We have created an economy that is reliant upon immigrant labour. There are insufficient suitably qualified and skilled people in the UK labour market to take up the slack come January 2021. The obsession with pushing everyone towards further and higher education means that we have a huge native mismatch between the skills/qualifications required and those available. It is not a problem that can be fixed quickly.

Shoving people into the wrong jobs to ensure fuller employment rarely ends well. There is no point in universities churning out loads of sociologists, geographers and economists and then making them wipe ar*es in nursing homes. Similarly, employers do not want to be forced to lower their expectations/standards when the labour market cannot accommodate their needs.

This really is a serious problem and the UKG appears unwilling to acknowledge it. I don't know about you but when/if I ever end up in a nursing home I hope I will be cared for by trained, skilled and committed staff of whatever nationality and not a UK-born linguistics graduate who is working there under sufferance until something "better" turns up.

[Fulmar]

I agree, it is so short sighted and has been heavily criticised and rightly so.

[dc1]

I think you will find a lot of people who are fit to work but dont want to, and can lift things when it suits them.

[Corky Smeek]

I think you will find a lot of people who are fit to work but dont want to, and can lift things when it suits them.

OK, so let's say that is true. Why should employers be faced with having to recruit from a pool of labour "who are fit to work but don't want to"? No employer is going to want someone like that working in their company. We live in a free-market economy and employers have the right to recruit who they want provided it doesn't contravene equality legislation. What the UKG is doing here is severely restricting the ability of employers to recruit the best people.

Whilst the UK was in the EU the pool of labour was much bigger and allowed employers to recruit people who very closely matched their needs. That will be much harder to achieve come 2021.

[Goodfellers]

The other way of looking at it is the people who are fit but not interested in work will ultimatly be forced to work or lose benifits I expect. Within a few months/years these people will get used to getting up and going to work, they will feel better for it and the whole economy improves.

Benifits will go to people who really need them and society will stop labelling people who cannot work as scroungers.

This only sounds good to me.

Also have to remember, there is no cap on skilled people coming to the UK, you only need to be offered a job paying £25K and you will get a visa. I doubt many skilled jobs pay less than that.

[Corky Smeek]

The other way of looking at it is the people who are fit but not interested in work will ultimatly be forced to work or lose benifits I expect. Within a few months/years these people will get used to getting up and going to work, they will feel better for it and the whole economy improves.

Benifits will go to people who really need them and society will stop labelling people who cannot work as scroungers.

This only sounds good to me.

Also have to remember, there is no cap on skilled people coming to the UK, you only need to be offered a job paying £25K and you will get a visa. I doubt many skilled jobs pay less than that.

People being forced to work does not help. Employers will resist, if not refuse, to take "conscripts". We cannot have the State determining who an employer must employ. Those are the tactics of totalitarian regimes and we are not (quite) there yet. Many "conscripted" employees will feel no loyalty or bond to their employer. They may even view themselves as captive employees and resent every waking moment they are forced to work. Employees in that situation do not make effective workers. As I said earlier the UK has a free market economy and such actions have no place in it. It is not progress to be contemplating what would effectively be forced labour.

I am also worried by your last paragraph; specifically the idea that there "is no cap on skilled people coming to the UK.". That does not tell the whole story. There are plenty of jobs in our care and health sectors, for example, where people need very specific skills to do their jobs but earn nowhere near £25K. I think it is wrong to suggest that people earning less than £25K are not skilled. Many of the palliative care staff who attended my mother in her final days were highly skilled and committed but were not high earners. Roughly half spoke English as a second language but all of them helped make my mother's passing as painless as it could be for all concerned.

It will not be as easy to satisfy the criteria as you make out and we will all suffer as a consequence.