How about we pay teachers a salary that allows them to teach kids to a higher standard because they are of a higher standard themselves?
Fixed +1
Thousands of skilled workers – including IT specialists and engineers – have been refused visas this year due to the British government's much-maligned immigration cap. According to figures released today, more than 6,000 Tier 2 (General) visa applications by people who had job offers from companies in the UK were refused …
How about we take some pride in helping our kids to a better start in life and don't rely on others to enthuse them with the wonders of education?
Kids want to learn, even the most horrible ones but they need the right subject and the right person to get them going and that starts at home before school begins. Bright kids aren't made in the classroom, they go to the classroom to learn how to burn brighter. You have to light the blue touchpaper on your kid's education and then watch them fly.
How about we pay teachers a salary that allows them to teach kids to a higher standard because they are of a higher standard themselves?
The problem wiht that is that if we have monkeys because we're paying peanuts, then unless we first fire the monkeys before increasing slaries, then we just have the same monkeys but now they're expensive.
That folks, is just an economic fact. People do not become more skilled because they are better remunerated, the money follows the upskilling.
If you think about it, what do you think is the quality of the school that your average Indian immigrant went to compared to the UK?
Yet they managed to become skilled enough to be offered a job and visa sponsorship to come to the UK.
It's not just down to teaching. Some individual/personal responsibility exists as well.
"How about we educate our children to a standard that we don't need to bring people in to fill the gaps?"
While that sounds promising, 50+ years of relying on immigration to fill job roles without any thought for the future consequences doesn't suggest any changes are likely...
As far as what is likely to be delivered with Brexit, it's getting rid of "uncontrolled immigration" and replacing it with the historical "loosely controlled immigration to address specific needs that can be arbitrarily altered to please the mood of the voters".
Is there a difference in these approaches? Yes, but I suspect it isn't significant in terms or the number of immigrants that enter the country over 2+ parliamentary terms where the needs or demands of the public are balanced with the needs and demands of business.
"Are you tell me all those people flooding in from North Africa arent Doctors and Engineers?"
Some of them are, but they are not allowed to work unless or until their asylum status is approved. And then they need the money to gain/re-gain recognised qualifications to be allowed to apply for the jobs they are already trained for.
I worked in high tech science and visited all sorts of odd parts of the world working with advanced scientific equipment.
There are Qualifications, qualifications and fake qualifications. Some countries are not even able to teach to the standard of a US/European/Japanese and similar universities. Countries like China and Russia could theoretically train some fabulous scientists but they had little technical experience (1970s). When somebody turns up at the border you just do not know. You don't even know if the company making the job offer is suitably qualified to ask for skilled foreign people or they are just a front for getting friends and family into the UK. It is often of little use asking UK government border staff to make a sound judgment because their scientific nous is abysmal. Science is not their job after all.
Blocking a high proportion of applicants is a good thing. Only really good people and good UK companies asking for them will persevere.
She added that rejections “send a damaging message that the UK is not open to the ‘brightest and best’ across the world” and could harm confidence in the UK’s immigration system.
I think the rest of the world has got the message loud and clear. If you're foreign, and want to have your rights pissed all over whilst governments illegally deport you (and steal your cash) then head on into the UK where you're sure not to be disappointed. If you saw how badly we treat our own citizens, you can be sure that damned Johnny Foreigner is going to get it worse.
She added that rejections “send a damaging message that the UK is not open to the ‘brightest and best’ across the world”
Ms. Main must have copy-pasta this from the guidebook on how to trash your domestic workforce.
This argument is rather smooth and it has been shown again and again the brightest and best stay home and answer calls from those that get these visas about how to do their job.
"These figures show the scale of the problem and the urgency to find a solution," said CaSE executive director Sarah Main.
"Across the country, businesses and public services are being blocked at the last hurdle from recruiting the people they need... This leaves employers frustrated and the public poorly served."
One wonders how many visa applicants are qualified for Ms. Main's position?
My kids were interested in IT but I steered them away from it. I've worked for 2 companies so far, where my job was 'replaced' by the usual suspects... There certainly isn't a skills shortage for my role, more like a glut, but the visas are approved! Thankfully there are still some companies left that haven't decided to dump on its workforce... It's only a matter of time though.
The cap should remain, in fact raised. It's only helping corporate greed and leaving the ex employees left with jobs they're over qualified for.
In general IT, are there that many niche skills that we can't easily send people on a course for, or read a book?
Perhaps the visa criteria should reject skills that the existing workforce can't readily be trained for.
We have some excellent universities.Also some souped-up Tech colleges that now award degrees in some very odd subjects. And the serious universities close physics departments because no-one wants to study physics.
So why import people? Because we need them now. Not in 20 years, after we've
a) reopened the university departments (probably have to staff them with imports)
b) got the first few undergraduate groups through
c) Let them gain postgrad degrees
d) Let them gain some years real-world experience
15-20 years min?
Funny you should mention physics departments.
I have a PhD in Physics, and have worked as a physics lecturer at a university.
But to be honest I won't be in any hurry to come along and lecture in any re-opened department for less that what I earn as an IT contractor in Europe. and that is a very good rate, in addition to tax incentives to skilled foreign workers which I am offered in the Netherlands and Denmark.
Fixed , low tax rates for skilled staff to attract them to the UK? Pull the other one guvnor, its got bells on. Its all them foreigns havign a laugh innit.
Seriously - has enyone ever heard of income tax incentives for highly qualified staff from outwith the UK? If our competitors can do it and seem very happy to do so why not the UK?
I worked in high tech long enough to know that there is a huge variability in educational exam qualifications - even in the UK let alone who knows where. It would be crass to just believe what is written on a visa application form. The NHS have gone some way with this problem by re-examining medical doctors before supporting them. I have come across many personnel staff who try to employ people for tech roles when their own qualifications are totally lacking in the required field. That even goes for managers who have created the vacancy. In many fields key workers know each other and communicate. They know which jobs are not worth having!
For every role that an employer wants to bring in a skilled worker on a visa because of a skills gap, they have to sponsor two local unemployed people through the relevant qualifications and training. At the end of the training period, the visa lapses and the role goes to one of the trained up locals, or the employer can choose to renew the visa, but will now have to sponsor four locals through training. Each visa renewal will incur an exponential burden of training. Eventually, it will have to be cheaper to hire a local candidate then bring someone in on a visa and pay for all the incurred training.
What ho chaps!
Over here in Singers the locals get frightfully upset when foreign "talent" gets imported to replace local labour. There are plenty of tales of Singaporeans being replaced by people the same nationality as a new manager.
That's why there's a percentage quota for employment pass holders in each company. Jobs also have to be advertised on a Singaporeans-only job site for a couple of weeks before the processing of employment pass applications will be entertained.
As a hiring manager I still end up hitting quota limits. It's not as though I'm rejecting locals for positions - I get hardly any applications from local software developers, etc.
Now, where's my morning G&T?
I have personal account of some people brought in on visas, who come from countries where the attitudes are actually far behind our progress. Net result, discrimination in the work place. Exactly the kind of thing we don't need.
The UK needs to be drawing from its pool of workers across its entire population.
And that, in a nutshell, is the summation of a letter I've just drafted to my MP, which will be sent tonight.
I don't care how many down votes I get for this. It's the truth. OK... bury me alive. I've got a social media oxygen tank.
So what you're saying is quotas that are meant to create scarcity and hopefully reduce abuse of the system have stopped 1000 people that were probably incredibly low level grunts from getting visas for jobs where they would barely (if at all) be a net contributor to the UK.. I'm not sure what the problem is guys.
There's probably several things going on here:
1) Employers deliberately not offering the UK going rate for jobs then are able to recruit from the usual places outside of the EU. You think this doesn't happen? I'll bet the usual three letter outsourcers all do this. In fact, one I worked for definitely does.
2) Having stupid selection criteria where they will only accept certain bits of paper (degrees, vendor certs etc) and refusing to even talk to those with CV's showing experience but no bits of paper.
3) Having located their business in some far flung corner of the UK to cheapen their outgoings, they cannot find modern skilled IT people from the surrounding area (because why would anyone with the skills to work in the locations where the demand/salary was high live in some rural sh*t hole). Again I know of one HUGE company that suffered this one.
Unfortunately the whole Brexit episode is caused by that classic conflict of what is good for the capitalists is bad for the proletariat. That's the underlying malaise that caused it. (and I say that as a Remainer!)
I left a position at IBM I had held for 10 years in order to fly to the UK to interview with a business partner 8 years ago. I was offered the position, then told a month later all unused sponsorships had been revoked by the newly elected Tory Government (thanks Mrs May!). Thankfully, I was able to acquire a visa through ancestry, and I've been here over 7 years. There are people in the UK who can do what I do, but not that many.
A reference was made in a previous comment to IR35. I gather that all Government departments and educational institutes have been told that all new contracts fall under IR35.
Which is stupid - I saw a very good contract at a UK University but had a lot of second thoughts when they announced it was under IR35.
The stupid thing that I was then offered some days consultancy with another firm - so I would not have been working for a sole employer anyway.
How can the justify IR35 when you consult for more than one company or department?