The Great British Public Vote Overwhelmingly, "british Jobs For British Workers".

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/public-mood-hardens-over-migrant-workers-8772739.html

Should the government ban immigrants from taking jobs while a million British youngsters are unemployed?

[New Judge]

No Jake. As you might expect I entirely disagree.

What we should be doing is discouraging anybody, with or without their families, from wanting to settle here. This has nothing to do with xenophobia, or racism or the EU but is a matter of simple economics. This nation has upwards of 2m people unemployed allegedly “seeking work”. Many of these have little or no skills. As I have said many, many times before, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to encourage people to settle here to undertake unskilled or semi-skilled work when we have that number of idle hands already here being paid by the taxpayer to sit at home . In fact I would go further than to say it makes no sense - it is utter madness; sheer lunacy; if observed by aliens from another world they would wonder whether those running the UK had been infected by a virus which attacks the area of their brains which control logical thought.

So long as we continue to import labour there will continue the argument that those already here without work are “having their jobs stolen from them, being undercut by foreigners” and all the other drivel that is spouted about this problem. I know there are difficulties persuading some people to go to work. There are also many unemployed who genuinely long for a job. Neither of those two problems are in the least bit cured by continuing to allow large numbers of migrants to settle here to pick cabbages, labour on building sites, clean hotel rooms and cut people‘s hair. We might as well stand in the road and tear up £50 notes.

[jake-the-peg]

The key thing you say is // Many of these have little or no skills. //

I see you have presented exactly no evidence to support this

But it's beside the point

Do you buy a more expensive British Washing Machine over a cheaper better German one?

No?

So why do you expect me to employ a more expensive lower quality British worker?

The only way this country will prosper is if we attract the best and get them to stay here.

[jake-the-peg]

In fact this is a great example of why true democracy doesn't work

If governments did exactly what people voted for there'd be chaos because nobody would take responsibility.

This 'British jobs for British Workers' idea is presented as if it entails zero cost

Who wouldldn't sign up to reducing unemployment for free.

Of course there is a cost - a big one.

If you increase the costs of British industries, force them to use expensive labour when their competition is using cheaper labour, they'll go out of business pretty damn sharpish and unemplyment will go up.

We can't compete with cheap labour costs and so we have to compete with quality, with design and with innovation.

That means using a highly qualified high quality workforce

I don't expect you to agree with that NJ as you seem to think that there's no point in sending most of our kids to University.

You probably think that subjects like art and media studies are a waste of time - despite the huge industry that things like the Advertising industry is.

Frankly I sometimes think half the people on here still think it's 1983 not 2013 or at least that the world is the same as it was 30 years ago!

[Kromovaracun]

Full employment is no longer a viable economic strategy, simply because less low-skill manpower is demanded than in the past. Due to globalisation, much manufacturing and mining originally in the UK has moved elsewhere in the globe, and remaining industries simply require less people to function.

This has been a recurring story in all countries that are not "developing" - from Europe to the USA. The idea that we can achieve full employment in the modern world is something of a conceit.

What does this have to do with immigration? Well, it's easy to see why those who rely on low-skill jobs have been building up resentment towards immigrants - there's been an increasing amount of competition for a decreasing number of jobs. But in other sectors of the economy, immigration is necessary. The most striking example is health, where the number of UK-born medicine graduates simply isn't sufficient to meet the demands of the health service. (I'd provide a link for this but I'm having to use a dongle for internet at the moment which is faaar too slow).

It's understandable that people want to pretend there's an easy solution to this problem, but there isn't one. The impact of immigration varies hugely across the economy, and I've noticed that peoples' opinions of immigration tend to vary considerably based on which part they've had the most contact with. Being able to apply the 'points' system we have for non-EU migrants to migrants from the EU would very likely solve this problem, but this would mean leaving the EU...

[FredPuli43]

Let's leave the EU. Some on here would be happy. But that would leave us with a problem, disregarding any argument for or against on economic grounds. How do we fill the jobs currently occupied by EU workers? Do we have gastarbeiter in the hope that they would do the manual jobs? That was Germany's idea for non-EU workers. Evidently Germany thought that natives wouldn't do the jobs. But they needed them done. So what would we do?

[New Judge]

I’ll not get too bogged down, Jake because it is evident that we will never agree. However, since you raised an analogy with your work, perhaps you could consider this. What is happening in the UK today is rather like your company being forced to keep people on its payroll who either cannot or will not do the work required of them. Instead of getting what work you can from them - since you are paying a tidy sum to keep them alive - you choose to allow them to stay at home whilst hiring more suitable staff. That’s what’s happening in the UK. There are more than one million 16-24 year olds without work. Two thirds of them have never worked. They cannot all be so indolent and useless that they cannot do some of the less skilled work that the million or more immigrants who have arrived in the past few years seem able to do.

Mr Nick Hurd, “Minister for Civil Society” (whatever that might be) suggested today that many school leavers “lack the grit and self-control” for work. I believe he is right. I also believe this problem has not developed overnight. That’s the problem that the UK needs to address and it is that problem that is stifling the UK‘s prosperity. It does not matter how profitable and efficient businesses are. By shipping in immigrant staff when there is labour already here they are simply exacerbating the problem. Effectively they are supporting an ever growing army of idle souls that will eventually crush what little life there is left of their companies and the nation’s economy.

I would agree with you, Kromo, if the jobs undertaken by immigrants were predominantly high skilled. But they are not. Go to any reasonably sized hotel in any large town or city. You will find the vast majority of the housekeeping, bar and catering staff are from abroad. The agricultural business would be virtually defunct without foreign labour. The caring industry similarly so. These are not highly skilled jobs. A school leaver can be taught t clean hotel rooms or work as a kitchen hand.

There is no need, Feed, to believe that our leaving the EU would mean the immediate forced repatriation of those already here (any more than it would mean BMW no longer selling their cars to UK customers). In many ways free movement ov labour afforded by the EU has cured the problem of lack of suitable staff, but had it not been available some other remedies more suited to the UK’s economy would have been found.

I don’t blame immigrants for seeking work here. Most of them are diligent and hard working (especially the lovely young lady from Lithuania who cuts my hair).. But in providing work for foreigners whilst allowing youngsters to languish on the dole we have landed ourselves with a huge social and economic problem, and it could have been avoided.

[New Judge]

And I forgot, Jake. No I don’t agree with sending most of our kids to university for one very simple reason. That is because most jobs in the UK do not require a university education. As I said earlier I believe about 15% is the maximum. This creates false hope for large numbers of youngsters who, buoyed by the idea that they will graduate, expect to walk into a graduate level job. This means that around seven in ten of them will be disappointed. They would have done better to have gained some GSCEs or ‘A’ Levels and headed off for the world of work. Once again, government policy is at odds with reality and the result is disillusioned youngsters. Even in the USA - that beacon of commerce and self-reliance - far less than 20% of the population hold degrees. To suggest that 50% of the population in the UK need to do likewise is utterly ridiculous and does well over half of those attending no favours at all. Of course it could be that in order to get anybody up to a decent basic standard of education they must go to uni when, in the past, two or three 'A' levels would have seen them equally competent. But that's quite another debate.

[Kromovaracun]

" Go to any reasonably sized hotel in any large town or city. You will find the vast majority of the housekeeping, bar and catering staff are from abroad. The agricultural business would be virtually defunct without foreign labour. The caring industry similarly so. These are not highly skilled jobs. A school leaver can be taught t clean hotel rooms or work as a kitchen hand. "

True enough. I can't argue with that.