Lower migration and the tax gap: raise taxes or ease restrictions?

Yep, India does the same.

We should also remember that some countries train healthcare workers specifically specially for export. And those workers send money home. The Philippines and its nurses are an example.

We should be mindful of the brain drain from developing countries that cannot afford the benefits and high wages that we can afford to pay doctors.

The NHS needs the most highly skilled workforce it can get. That means hiring the best people regardless of race or nationality.

Yet, say for doctors, our medical schools/unis are grossly oversubscribed so youngsters who are perfectly capable of being trained up don't get the opportunity and end up in other careers/professions. Even those who qualify sometimes can't find jobs in the NHS. At the same time, we're bringing over immigrant doctors. It makes no sense. We should increase the number of training places so "home grown" students can train in the UK and work in the UK. I understand it's similar with nurses and other healthcare professionals.

I think a big problem in the UK is that university places/courses don't "match" the careers/jobs needed. It's a throw back from a few decades ago when students went to Uni because they had a love of the subject and wanted to study it. Now people go to Uni because they need a degree for most of the decent jobs/careers/professions, yet the Uni system hasn't adapted/changed to being "work" centred rather than academic for academia sake.

Some legal migration helps us, as they tend to be people we need.

Undocumented arrivals costs us a fortune.

But, overall, migration here, is a financial negative for us. 🤷‍♀️

Yes, it's human nature, being biased towards your own kind.

But we really need to get serious about 'British jobs for British workers' and that means black as well as white people. Welfare should an option only for those who cannot work. The young should be working, even if it's minimum wage as they will learn skills, meet people and maybe it will be stepping stone to something else.

Some legal migration helps us, as they tend to be people we need.

Undocumented arrivals costs us a fortune.

But, overall, migration here, is a financial negative for us. 🤷‍♀️

I fully agree about getting people into work.

Our politicians over the decades have really let us down with the short term thinking of "offshoring" low value work, i.e. getting clothes, appliances, trains, ships, plastic tat, steel, plastic tat, even coal, oil and wood, imported from abroad because it was "superficially" cheaper.

It was only "cheaper" in terms of product pricing.

No account was taken of the ramifications of putting people out of work, i.e. unemployment/disability benefits, social costs i.e. higher crime, unhealthy lifestyles, etc.

As you quite rightly say, working is good for you, learning new skills, meeting new people, a sense of community etc - far better than a lazy life on benefits being bored and getting into unhealthy/antisocial habits.

Personally, I think it's worth governments paying a bit more to have goods manufactured in the UK to save the costs of unemployment, social problems, unhealthy people, etc. Likewise encouraging UK employers to take on UK workers rather than "importing" cheap labour from abroad - same principle, short term savings for the employer, but long term costs for the taxpayer in terms of the unemployed who could/should be doing that work.

But most of the money paid in welfare goes back into the economy.

A significant amount for working age households (not pensioners), goes to private landlords because housing is the biggest expenditure in a household on benefits. Out of £145bn in welfare for working age households, £37bn goes to landlords - which isn’t the full cost of rent as most households find they have to top up the housing benefit/housing element.

Yes, it's human nature, being biased towards your own kind.

But we really need to get serious about 'British jobs for British workers' and that means black as well as white people. Welfare should an option only for those who cannot work. The young should be working, even if it's minimum wage as they will learn skills, meet people and maybe it will be stepping stone to something else.

Ah, see where we are I was categorising Sainsbury’s as super big employer and here the supermarkets are still hiring white Brits.

It is such a natural thing I am not surprised it happens. I bet if you ask to see the manager they will match the cohort of workers.

I'm seeing this to.

My large local Sainb only employs people of certain origin, a lot of them don't even speak English, so assume all very recent migrants. If you ask any of them where certain item is they call another colleague because they don't understand your question. This is in London

The biggest drop in tax revenues is due to Brexit (loss is £250million per day, or £90bn per year)

Brexit has also caused job losses, so the too few working is mostly about there being too few jobs not a sudden explosion in laziness.

There has been an increase in fewer working due to disability but that is a consequence of underfunding the NHS for decades. People on waitlists for simple surgeries that could have got them back to work end up being permanently disabled due to surgery delays.

To fix this, we need to reverse Brexit and invest into the NHS.

It won’t be easy to rejoin, but we need to admit it and get started on it.

Just picking up on the issue of young people not wanting to do care work, I think there is a lot that needs to be sorted in the system. Although I have no direct experience, I have spoken with many of my neighbours carers (home care several times a day) and they suggest that the title is a complete misnomer - they don't have time to care. They are rushing from one care recipient to the next, not given sufficient time to do much beyond the essential and not paid enough for travel between jobs.

There is a huge mark-up on the cost of wages, as the patient pays substantially more than it costs, probably about double, which suggests that either there are huge admin costs involved or large profits are being made - maybe a combination of the two?

The cost of 4 x 30 minute visits a day (14 hours a week) over the course of a year amounts to around £28,000 (https://caretoolkit.co.uk/home-care-cost-calculator-uk/) - more than minimum wage for a 35 hour week and approximately the same as the cost of employing somebody full-time.

Carer's allowance however is just £86.45/week for a family member providing 35+ hours a week of unpaid care, a total of just £4,495.40 a year. The huge discrepancy between the cost of paying for in-home independent social care as opposed to paying a family member is another aspect that I think needs to be addressed. Caring needs to be valued in our society and this suggests otherwise.

I say no to anymore increases in immigration.

It’s not just the headline figures which count. Theres a real complex situation on the ground which helps no one and has been slowly developing for decades.

I do think immigrants work, if you look at the high street where I live 2/3rds are ‘immigrant’ run shops. I say immigrant because these could be British citizens now, and some second generation. They work hard. I am not saying they shouldn’t be doing what they are doing.

My point to the above is that it’s not an issue in itself, and they offer entry level unskilled work and plenty of it.

My issue is that if you as a white British woman, or your partner as a white British man, or your children as white British youth were to go into any of these establishments and try to get a job - 90% would be a no. They hire within themselves. Whether that’s family, ethnic ties, language ties, country ties.

This phenomenon is not unique to small private retail. I work with a large national employer of ‘unskilled labour’ with various locations across the country and the moment you have a manager of an ethnicity you can guarantee the team will quickly transform with new hires matching the managers. Ie. Turkish will hire Turkish. Polish hire polish, Indian hire Indian.

So on the ground there is a logistical issue with white brits getting work and that leaves it all to the super big employers. And I am not 100% sure the problem doesn’t exist there either.

And then everyone complains white Brits don’t work!

Well it seems that’s back in the spotlight but as other threads have in more detail it’s not as easy as just re-joining.

The biggest drop in tax revenues is due to Brexit (loss is £250million per day, or £90bn per year)

Brexit has also caused job losses, so the too few working is mostly about there being too few jobs not a sudden explosion in laziness.

There has been an increase in fewer working due to disability but that is a consequence of underfunding the NHS for decades. People on waitlists for simple surgeries that could have got them back to work end up being permanently disabled due to surgery delays.

To fix this, we need to reverse Brexit and invest into the NHS.

I agree. Our answer to our problem is get white Brits working.

Importing more people doesn’t solve that problem.

@AmberTigerEyes And of course they spend their earnings! They don’t just save it! Although savings are there to fund business growth! Or fund the government via gilts. The whole economy depends on inter-connected money. However the biggest problem
is that we have low growth, and we are not generating enough money! This is what we need to do or government spending will curtail. Recycling money doesn’t fund growth in any meaningful way or provide income tax either. All welfare spending is provided by taxes or borrowing. Taxes revenues are falling because too few are working and borrowing is at record levels so taxation goes on borrowing costs ! It’s madness.