High Unemployment !

[tonyav]

In these times of high unemployment is there any need to do this.
http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2013/09/14/more-than-98000-west-midlands-jobs-advertised-to-european-workers/

And this is just the West Mids, wonder how many other area's are doing the same thing.

[tonyav]

Ah yes dot, The World Series as an example.

[factor-fiction]

The World Series though got it's name because it was sponsored by a newspaper with World in its name. But it's true- most Americans know little about the world outside USA

[ck1]

I was recruiting earlier this year, advertised locally and on monster with almost no response, put it on EURES and was inundated with applicants from Spain, Portugal, Poland, was a decent salary office based position, from my own experience there is a circle of brits that just don't to work regardless. Wages aside, one of the most important things for an employer is getting somebody who is prepared to actually do the job and, sadly, more and more are having to look outside of these shores to find somebody

[factor-fiction]

Here are some good examples of the ignorance/insularity of US citizens

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odKBE22yaPA

[tonyav]

LOL, some crackers on there, ff.

[New Judge]

“as members of the EU we HAVE BY LAW to make certain that jobs here are advertised throughout the entire EU.”

Not correct, Eddie. No employer has an obligation to advertise his job vacancies in any particular area. If you run a high street sweet shop and want to advertise for a part-time assistant to serve your customers their gob-stoppers you can put a card in the window. You do not have to advertise the post in the Le Monde, the Budapest Bugle, The Riga Recorder or Warsaw Weekly.

This outfit (European Employment Services - EURES) is an arm of the EU:

“Set up in 1993, EURES is a co-operation network between the European Commission and the Public Employment Services of the EEA Member States “

So it has a vested interest in ensuring that all and sundry roam all over the continent in pursuit of the EU’s crowning achievement - the free movement of people.

Not really sure what the issue is, LazyGun? Well, the UK has between two and five million unemployed (depending on whose figures you believe). There is no way on earth we should be encouraging immigrants to work here until that number is considerably reduced. (Oh, and we’ve done to death, in previous questions, the issue about people already here being unwilling or unable to pick cabbages or mix concrete).

[LazyGun]

@NJ So? The jobs are offered here as well. If the employer cannot find anyone here to do the job, what do you want them to do? Work short-handed? Press -gang the workshy?

Look at some of the jobs being advertised. Some mentioned, at least as far as the short description in the article goes, sound relatively high-skilled. So, at least for those particular jobs, the prospective employers will either get a raft of local candidates assuming the job is offering a competitive salary and conditions, or they won't, because there are insufficiently qualified local candidates, or the local candidates are uninterested for a whole host of reasons.So you tell me - what's an employer to do in those circumstances?

As an employer myself, I will hire whoever offers me the best bang for my buck, be it a home grown candidate or one from abroad if necessary. And you know what, a home grown candidate is almost always going to fulfill the role better, because of secondary considerations, like language skills, common cultural referents etc.

Just because the jobs are advertised europe wide does not automatically mean that a non-briton will get the job.

If you stopped greedy employers trying to enhance their own profit margins and shortchange the minimum and living wage for the low wage low skill jobs by hiring foreign migrants, that might go a long way towards reducing the need for such employees.

[ichkeria]

"Israel already takes part in the Eurovision Song Contest "

The Eurovision Song Conest is for countries belonging to the EBU, which has seleveral members outside Europe. Several ME and N African countries have taken part in the past.

I'm sure NJ is right that all job vacancies do not have to be advertised EU-wide. That would be silly.
But many jobs require skills that cannot be filled by UK nationals. I'm not saying that is the case with all of those in the link, but it follows I'd have thought that advertising EU-wide gives you more chance of finding workers with the relevant skills or willing to work for minimum or illegal wages.

[New Judge]

A few jobs require skilss not available from within, though not many (and that begs the question just what has our government been doing running an education system that does not churn out youngsters skilled in the way that suits UK business). But most of the vacancies filled by incomers are of the low skilled low pay variety. The reason many unemployed Britons "will not" undertake these jobs is because they are almost as well off sitting at home watching the racing. And that's a scandal which successive governments have allowed to develop. As I said, we've done all this in earlier questions.

[tonyav]

Other jobs include engineering apprenticeships in Oldbury

I find this very strange that it should be advertised abroad.

[LazyGun]

@ NJ Hmmm, yes. Very constructive submission.

Regardless of what you think about whether local/native britons are workshy or that employers have been utilizing foreign labour as a way of avoiding paying the minimum wage and keeping wages in the UK depressed, in the absence of any other solution, as an employer it bothers me not that vacancies are advertised both here and abroad.

Anything else, or suggestions that in so doing they are depriving the local unemployed of job opportunities is just facile.

[New Judge]

No LG, I don’t for one minute suggest that foreign labour is depriving UK workers of jobs. The jobs are there and it must be easier and more convenient for people already here to apply for and get these jobs than it is for people who have to up sticks and move to a foreign country. Of course employers must do all that is necessary to keep their businesses running.

No, the scandal is that people in the UK are allowed to languish at taxpayers’ expense whilst employers have to scrabble around looking for staff. I don’t hold to the thesis that suggests that people are entitled to refuse to work because they are very little better off by doing so. In short the government needs to ensure that youngsters are properly educated so that the UK has the skills its businesses need and they also need to ensure that people are not allowed to remain unemployed whilst work is available. Then there would be no need to import labour.

[youngmafbog]

We have no choice and Mr Austin should know this. He is simply trouble stirring which is why he has no answer. But the reason it is happening is because Blair and Brown sold us down the river so perhaps his question should be directed at Red Ed?

This is the EUSSR. Get used to it, it WILL get worse unless someone grows a pair and gets us out. And I can't see that happening will the current incumbents or labour.

[Old_Geezer]

There's never (or nearly never maybe) any reason to advertise jobs abroad. The, disloyal to the country and community, companies that do so without good justification ought to be told they have to pay the welfare for one family here, in compensation, rather than expect the citizen taxpayer to pick up the tab caused by their choice.

[tonyav]

Totally agree with that, Old_Geezer.

[LazyGun]

Viewing advertising jobs abroad as being tantamount to treason is just silly. So long as those self-same jobs are being advertised within the country/community then there is no earthly reason why such jobs should not be advertised.

@NJ I agree that they education system needs to reflect the changing needs of the jobs market and certainly industry and universities should have input into the curriculum.

"No, the scandal is that people in the UK are allowed to languish at taxpayers’ expense whilst employers have to scrabble around looking for staff. I don’t hold to the thesis that suggests that people are entitled to refuse to work because they are very little better off by doing so"

This is where it gets interesting. I would be fascinated to hear how you plan to press the workshy into working,because right now it just sounds like bashing those on benefits.

Enforcing the legal minimum wages upon those companies putting profit before ethics would help enormously; as you have correctly identified, the problem area tends to be the low pay/low skill sector. Successive governments are recognising the need to establish the principle that working pays; that a life on benefits should not offer the same or even better return than work does.

But how far would you go to ensure that those malingers are made to work? How do you distinguish between those genuinely in need and the workshy? Someone on benefits in Sunderland. for example - should they be forced to attend interviews in London for a low wage low skill job?

[New Judge]

No I don't know the answers to many of those questions, LG. But I do know that many, many people do not work through choice in areas where work is available. It is clear that people are arriving in the UK from elsewhere and are able to find work fairly readily. Not brain surgery or rocket science but jobs in the hospitality trade and agriculture needing very little skill.

I know there are some people who would love to work but can find none. But the reason that some people already here do not work is often a combination of low wages and high benefits and the government needs to tackle this problem before it spends its time legislating to compel retailers to collect 5p for charity every time it gives away a plastic bag. But the former problem may prove a bit trickier to solve.