BS
£40K...I think your looking at the wrong visa category there, There are other categories which allow staff on £20K plus to be brought into the UK by the company, which isn't that high.
Too right it is hard to bring in foreign workers, we have 4 million unemployed, therefore look after your own first. The requirement for British/EU workers is easily gotten around, using small circulation publications for advertising is a favoured one. The economy of this country needs people working to pay tax to support it. More unemployed, more money spent on benefits and more crime. More people in work, usually less crime and less spent on benefits.
I know plenty of well trained people who get turned down for positions, solely because the recruiter has a cozy deal set up to supply overseas candidates in preference to local candidates. and no most of them don't have a flipping clue how to do the job or speak English. Some of them are a liability, can't speak English yet recruited to drive heavy machinery in a busy area, where the rest of the staff speak English, resulting in people being run over, because they don't understand "STOP"
I dont subscribe to the Mail etc, but I'm a bit tired of companies breaking the rules by not advertising positions that they have available, lying about vacancies when questioned, then recruiting a heap of new staff from outwith the EU to save money and avoid having to offer decent terms and conditions or obey things such as the "working time directive" or health and safety laws.
Also I did suggest a way forward, by giving employers a bigger say in training courses in exchange for taking a set number of graduates from said course. Which of course the recruiters don't want to happen.
Frankly the rate it is going, no one will be in skilled work in the UK soon as either everything gets "outsourced" or foreign "contractors" are brought in, instead of training local staff.
But then that doesn't fit in with your shiny fluffy world view does it?