The �7-per-hour jobs locals don't want

[Gromit]

From BBC2 Prog tonight...

The agricultural sector would be in dire straits without the immigrants willing to do the hard graft on the land. Labour which can net workers up to �25,000-a-year with overtime.

But that's not enough to entice some of the local lads picking up their dole money in Peterborough. A constant trickle of young men are in and out of the office collecting their state benefits. But there's little appetite for taking one of those vegetable-picking jobs of up to �7-an-hour. One group of lads:

Job for �7 an hour - "I prefer to sign on than do that" "No mate I'd prefer to sign-on than do that."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7288430.st m

What do you think?

[popsickle]

lads get well better paid. girls cant graft like lads. so thats only half of all doleys.
im not 1 by the way, but it wud be daft to turn that down.

[Theland]

Have you ever picked vegetables? I have and it's hard graft, especially when it is piece work and not paid by the hour.
Maybe we could build railways and pay the track layers a handful of rice per day - it worked for the Japs in Burma.
How much would you expect to be paid for this kind of work?

[popsickle]

u m or f theland?
that aimed at me

[Theland]

pops - Our posts crossed - I thought mine was the first. Not aimed at anybody, just questioning the rates of pay.

[Ripley58]

�7 an hour seems like pretty good pay for such a job, but as Theland points out, vegetable picking is not paid by the hour, so I would imagine it says 'up to �7 an hour'. If you're slow, you would earn considerably less, I think. Nevertheless, good on those who choose to do this type of hard, back breaking work. They earn every penny!

[WaldoMcFroog]

Bl00dy hardworking immigrants, coming over here, taking our - well, not 'our jobs'; we're too lazy to do 'em - making us look bad, too stupid to just collect benefits like what we do, and they talk funny and smell of potatos...

[king_arthur]

Our countryside is full of Eastern Europeans working hard picking fruit, vegetables etc. Its those taxed wages that pay for the young men in Peterborough to sign on

[sp1214]

I don't object to unskilled immigrants doing the work we don't want. The problem is the indigenous population unable to find skilled work for which they have been trained and being undercut by foreign skilled workers.
To rub it in the job centre tries to force our skilled workers into these menial jobs with the threat of losing their benefits.

[keyplus90]

With due respect to all hard working people, it is true that the youngsters here are more willing to be on dole which would give them enough for booze. Why would they have to work hard. Council will give them place to live as well as money.

I have heard this so many times that immigrants have taken all our jobs and that is the reason we are unemployed.

I think it is other way around because few people did not want to do the job so the others decided to take over. Trust me that it happens in all the societies.

I will give one example that more than 50% math teachers are immigrants either first generation or second. And reason for that is the local students want to chose the easiest of the subjects when it comes to just pass the exams. So in the future is going to be even worse as they are trying to scrape homework citing the stress for kids. What a shame.

[WaldoMcFroog]

"more than 50% math teachers are immigrants either first generation or second"

Source, please, Skyplus.

[Booldawg]

Surely if living on the dole is better than getting out of bed to pick vegetable for 7 pound and hour then wouldnt it be cost effective for the government to pay them exactly what they are currently getting, make them do a 40 hour week and the farmer pays the government 7 pound an hour for the employees time? This would massively cut unemployment figures and keep the workshy t055ers in fags and beer.

[keyplus90]

http://royalsociety.org/downloaddoc.asp?id=486 7

[vehelpfulguy]

>potatos...

Some of these immigrants can't even spell potatoes.

[DONNAKEBABUK]

I agree whole heartedly with you Theland. I have seen my former boyfriend go out and Cauli Cut from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m (at least) in the evening - on piece rate and earn a mere �90.00.

�7.00 an hour is above the national minimum wage, where I live people work for half of that - the other choice being income support.

Good for you if you HAVE cut veg - it shows what a darned hard worker you are.

Best Wishes.

Katie. x

[WaldoMcFroog]

>> potatos...
>
> Some of these immigrants can't even spell potatoes.

Really? Me either, so again, hardly fair to suggest it says anything particularly significant about immigrants, is it?

Here, have an 'e' - e, and go spell check someone else.

Keyplus, thanks for the link, but I can't find your statistic in that report. There's not a single incident of the word 'immigrant' nor of 'first generation' or '1st generation'. Can you give me a page reference, since I'm too lazy to read the whole thing.

[LoftyLottie]

I agree with Theland. Ihave seen first hand what these workers have to put up with as well as how damn hard they have to work. I really do admire the immigrants for doing this work and for doing it happily and without complaint. It shows just how much they want to stay in our country.

If anybody can earn �25,000 then they must be superman. The majority just earn enough to make ends meet.

[naomi24]

The programme definitely stated �7 an hour - not up to �7 an hour. Good luck to them if they can make it here. I've no objection to anyone coming here if they work, don't cause trouble, and contribute to the system. I do, however, object to ANYONE who's fit for work but would rather sign on, since they're nothing but a burden to society.

I did find it a little worrying though, that the schools and GP surgeries were finding it difficult to cope. Those are problems that need addressing urgently.

[legend004]

at those wages these immigrants are actually contributing towards doley idle twaaaats.


country gone mad.


send them home?


yes???

and cripple the country



wake up

its the deadbeats that should be kicked out not the immigrants

[ruby27]

The programme showed the local indigenous youths complaining that the local jobs were 'nicked' by immigrants and then laughing at the thought of the job veg picking. Plus one of them was swilling larger/beer. All in all it was not an edifying sight and it would have been difficult to have any sympathy with them.

What I thought was worrying was what is the impact of this labour drain going to have on countries such as Poland where there is mass migration. We seem happy to welcome all at present whilst it makes economic sense to us, even if the cost of us having cheap labour may be to the economic detriment to another country. Certainly our vacuuming up of medical staff from other countries has had a negative impact on other countries ability to manage a health service.