AIBU to think banning new international recruitment of staff for care homes is bonkers? [Title edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

Parents are not allowed in as dependants on a health and care worker visa.

IF the migrant then gets indefinite leave to remain some years down the line and IF they then meet the incredibly strict criteria, then they can enter as family members. But they cannot enter as dependants and count towards the statistics of how many dependants come with someone on their initial visa.

Surely care homes are exactly where immigrant labour is needed? What is the alternative, other than actually paying care staff properly and improving working conditions to the point people actually want to do it?

Another alternative is assisted dying. I don't support AD, because I believe that (1) it will be introduced (2) initially with good safeguards (3) over time these will be watered down (4) people who are elderly / keep poor health will be at greatest risk, especially if they can't afford their own care, or care is not available. It terrifies me

It’s not just care work. Social work, Nursing , teaching are tough low paid jobs, recruitment has been global for many decades because we can’t recruit here. People come here and bring their families, they are low paid so are eligible for Benefits and use health and social care. Basically it’s a Ponzi scheme.
And interesting that for some jobs pay apparently needs to be high to get the “right” people, but not others.

A few years ago I was involved in shortlisting for a clinical psychologist post with over 200 applicants, some applications were ridiculous but you can imagine it took a lot of work to shortlist.

Only 70% of the shortlisted confirmed they would attend for an interview and out of those, only 50% turned up for interview, and the appointed person initially accepted than called a few days later to say they had had a preferable offer.

It was a newly-qualified position for those just out of post-grad which are posts usually at a premium, hence the number of applicants but as we had to make interview time and space for all the shortlisted (as often, people don't confirm an interview but turn up anyway), it was a couple of days of clinician time and clinical space wasted.

You clearly don't care about the welfare of the vulnerable.

I do actually agree that tightening dependent visas should reduce immigration overall, and possibly increase the value of immigration to the economy if it means that legal immigration will bring in a younger, childless (at the point of moving) demographic who will be net contributors for longer.

I'm just against dodgy stats!

People, especially young adults, not showing up for interviews or showing up for interview, getting the job, then not showing up seems to be pretty common now across a range of sectors.

I live south of Glasgow, and I know that local farmers can't get workers - to the point that some are considering retiring earlier than planned or leaving farming altogether because it's not sustainable or safe for them to continue alone. Local tearooms and restaurants are having the same problem, as are local trades - I've spoken to self employed joiner, mechanic and heating engineer recently who who are struggling to recruit at all or have problems with workers who simply don't bother turning up if they don't feel like it! Young adult DS has been interviewing for hospitality jobs and on one occasion recently the interviewer told him that the previous 3 candidates hadn't bothered turning up for interview.

I say get people trained and into work. Not everyone has a vocation for their job.

Not all jobs have high salaries because of the qualifications required. Compare this work to that of a nurse for example. The nurse will be paid more.

In my experience such staff aren't good, spitting everywhere, rude, disrespecting and mistreating very vulnerable people. You need verifiable people to look after the most vulnerable in society, not bring in who knows what from places where every qualification and certification is bought and sold and who were not typically brought up with values of empathy and respect particularly towards women, especially women of western culture. Equally the most vulnerable need someone who can communicate to an excellent standard in English.
It is a very bad idea but someone got paid to implement it and/or got kickbacks and you need to use your critical thinking and recognise problems rathet than regurgitate headlines that are also designed to make money for someone.

The Zimbabwean birth rate is 3.7 per woman, whereas the UK birth rate is 1.6 so fairly likely a Zimbabwean immigrant will have more than two children.

I agree it’s a questionable stat. Even with 2 parents and a husband or wife that leaves. Very large number of children. More than is typical in modern Zimbabwe. Nevertheless, we need to tighten up on dependant visas, which make up a very high proportion of visas issued in recent years.

Some classic Guardian reporting there. They are using the phrase ‘profit margin’ to obfuscate the real financial performance. As the actual accounts for these companies shows the profit after tax number is far less attractive. The Guardian article uses the same data that was used in a PP screenshot of another article, which used EBITDARM as a measure of profit. That, conveniently, excludes every major cost except staff and is therefore effectively meaningless. Knowing the profit before you covered the costs of the building, the equipment, the financing, the tax and the rent doesn’t really tell you a lot.

On that basis, Tesco is making profits of around 35%!! After the costs needed to actually run a a business it’s nearer 2% or 3% net profit after tax, but that doesn’t make a good headline…

I speak as the relative of someone, living in a care home, who gets 1:1 care all their waking hours.

Pay in the care industry is beyond our control, but we choose charities, so there’s no profit, and they tell us their care staff are the highest paid in the county.

People not turning up - could it be that job seekers have to prove they are seeking work. So will apply for things they don’t want.

People don’t rush into setting up care homes either. This idea that profit can be removed isn’t the case for any business. I mean all this is assuming someone else wants to do caring more than say those posting do.

It’s hard to get staff because there’s an extra carrot for people taking visas.

This is the other thing I am worried about.

There are some industries where people being miserable at having to do that work probably matters little. For care home workers then it’s a far bigger point or concern.

Given a lot of care homes are owned by hedge funds and foreign nationals maybe we should be putting a cap on profits to help pay for better training and higher wages

I work in the NHS and that happens all the time, for professionally-qualified jobs with good salaries too.

That just seems to be the way things are these day, a lot of people are rude or disorganised and just don't turn up.

Plans to get unemployed benefit Brits to do this tough job? None by the look of it

Thank god. Who would want someone who has been forced into the role caring for them? There have been enough cases of abuse as it is.

@ButterCrackers

"Why stop people arriving to do the difficult and also low paid carer jobs? "

Because if they weren't low paid then you wouldn't need to import cheaper labour to do these difficult jobs.

Rather than pay a higher wage to do, as you correctly point out, is a very challenging job, the corporations would rather keep their profits high by importing cheap labour

A care home manager on the radio this morning was saying that every time they advertise for staff locally they either get no replies or people who arrange an interview and don't turn up - despite apparently offering above the living wage. Salaries would have to go up pretty substantially to counteract that. In principle I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but I'm not convinced the question of funding has been properly thought through.

Why stop people arriving to do the difficult and also low paid carer jobs? Arriving to work and pay tax and social security. Plans to get unemployed benefit Brits to do this tough job? None by the look of it.

The private ones seem to make quite a lot of profit. Perhaps they should share some with staff.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/24/uk-private-care-providers-profit-rise-covid-report

The biggest rise was at Runwood Homes, where the underlying profit margin widened by 37% in 2020, and which reported a profit before tax of £25.4m, up from £15m the year before, according to the research. A quarter of its homes are rated as requiring improvement by the Care Quality Commission.
The highest margin – 41.7% – was at Avery Healthcare, up from 39.8% in 2019 and 32.5% in 2015. The company, which runs 56 care homes in the UK, was recently acquired by the Reuben Brothers, named as Britain’s second richest family with an estimated fortune of £21.5bn, in the company’s first investment in the senior care sector. A press release in March said the deal – a joint venture with US real estate investment trust Welltower Inc – was expected to “generate significant future growth opportunities”.
The findings will fuel concerns about profiteering by private providers despite the pressures of Covid, and come amid reports of cost-cutting at some chains, and continued low pay for many staff.

Yes, mucho short term pain expected.