Immigrant rule on paying 20% less than going rate

[Crikeyalmighty]

I'm not quite sure how this passed me by in the list of ludicrous post Brexit stuff but reading today about the fact that in certain shortage occupations it is possible if using immigrants needing visas to pay up to 20% less than the going rate to obtain visas , provided it's more than minimum wage . Labour I believe want to outlaw it.

The figures today do not suprise me one bit- I have a desk in a centre that also does visa processing- for the last 6 months it has been wall to wall with families from developing countries . Not single youngish people but large families and clearly not all nuclear scientists or brain surgeons or however the gvt tried to make it sound as if it would all be super highly skilled immigration - and all will need medical and housing .

If anyone tries to tell me this makes sense rather than mainly single people here short term from the EU- sorry I'm not having it. At least in the EU we had reciprocal rights in places you possibly would choose to live and work or retire . This way it seems the traffic is all one way .

These are not the governments beloved subject of 'the boats' - this is people flying in with permission to work- I don't think many had this quite in mind when they voted to leave- although I always thought it would end up being the case.

There was a gal on Radio 5 Wake up to Money this morning, about 37 minutes in if you want to listen on BBC Sounds, from coach-driving business. She was asked why her company / the industry doesn't just train up more drivers, why do they want to import drivers (get them on shortage list). Her answers:

~1 year & £5k to train each one; with a driver shortage=6 in her company alone, her company can't afford it, especially with other cost rises (fuel) & recent hits on revenue (covid); most companies in the industry are SME/family owned.

Can't start training until age 21, Insurance cost prohibitive for such young drivers

To retain & attract drivers they have cut hours/made the rota more family friendly. The rota change made the driver shortage worse

Crisis in HGV drivers poached coach drivers, govt is supporting that industry more than coach drivers

I wonder how much that experience is replicated in other industries.

It's a bit rich to complain about lack of British workers in London - who can afford to live there if you weren't born and bred with parents who bought their own house?

The starting pay for just about anyone is too low to afford to live in London unless you have family there

But hey let's bring in lots of people from war torn districts or impoverished third world countries who appreciate low wages and HMOs.

There needs to be an adjustment - just accept you cannot get these workers without paying what they need to live and start paying what it actually costs. Rising costs of hotels, restaurants, nursing - pay for it.

How much more do you expect everyone, including you, to pay for those things, Tots678? 50%?

NOthing, I can't afford to visit London.

I watched a programme on this a few years ago. They got unemployed brits to work in industries alongside immigrants who were already in the UK and working.

One guy was a qualified joiner (IIRC), they paired him up with a young (they were both in their 20s) French girl who worked in a chippy near the British Museum. She lived in a house share of 20 people. That’s the difference. She was just making a bit of money while travelling around Europe before going back to live in France and working there. He wanted him and his girlfriend to live together and start a family, not live with loads of other people and have one room to himself.

Same programme featured a single dad in Lincolnshire. Got him a job working on a farm doing fruit/veg picking. Expected him there from 5 a.m., no consideration given to his childcare needs (kids were primary age). Ridiculous.

There are things you could do: but they're all either really long term solutions or going to get pushback.

Increase immigration is obvious and can be done quickly but unpopular with the core Tory vote.

Speed up Universal Credit timelines and grant more leeway so people can take temporary jobs or risk jobs that might not work out, or up their hours when there's a surge in need. Not going to go down well with the Mogg-ite tendency. Risks encouraging people who are currently scraping by without claiming UC because it's such a admin nightmare to start claiming.

More support for people out of work for potentially recoverable health reasons (especially the common MH issues) - unquestionably a good thing to do but not a quick fix.

Increase free childcare to give families who can just about afford to have a SAHP more incentive to work. Already planned but hugely expensive, and if underfunded risks collapse of child care industry.

Ditto but relax ratios on childcare to save money and protect childcare industry. Guaranteed huge pushback.

Fund the training of more doctors and nurses. Long term solution, not a quick fix, not as cheap as just importing them.

Well, the university industry is a total shitshow as well. Why people who would have done perfectly well at a polytechnic or in an apprenticeship now apparently all need to go to uni (thanks Tony Blair) is beyond me.

If we didn't bring in immigrants and everyone had to actually pay what it needs for service industry etc then places like London who are demanding more immigrants would become very expensive to live - and so that would mean people would move out of London to cheaper parts of the country - and that would mean house prices would fall in London (boohoo) and that would mean that British people could afford to move there.

Surely one of the reasons there are a shortage of every type of labour is that we relied on eastern europeans thanks to T Blair, and didn't train our own.

Immigration on this scale is a pyramid scheme.

Thanks for the responses- to those saying it just applies to the visa- I don't think you are right- here is the link on the .gov site just so you can familiarise yourself

www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa/when-you-can-be-paid-less

My own personal view is that I'm not anti immigration at all- however I feel Brexit was sold very much by the 'leave' campaign based on immigration and taking back control and actually people were sold a total pup. I believe they always knew immigration would need to rocket but hey let's bring in loads of people more likely to stay long term , who will be greatful to be here pand vote for us.

Brexit has cost according to reports so far of around 300 billion and there are very few gains at all. It has decimated many industries that had export as a big part of it and meant many organisations have simply moved overseas as well. My own view is that all well and good if the EU had disbanded and we were all on a level playing field for exports and investment but that's not what has happened and we have essentially handed 27 other countries a lot of our best business on a plate . I have recently had to go to Germany and Netherlands and Eire- all to some extent have hit boom times partly because of Brexit and even with covid in the mix.

So as for saying we held all the cards- no we didn't- we held very few.

With regards to lower wages due to immigration- it's not just the wages that are the issue here- it's costs- very little social housing, lots of hugely overpriced private rents, houses too expensive for people on average wages to buy in vast amounts of the country , particularly in southern half of UK - no rent controls, higher food prices do partly pertain to Brexit and cost of imports- also farmers etc trying to maximise uk income due to difficulties in exporting and higher costs at their end generally - there are many reasons.

The idea that there are millions of people out there not working who are employable and actually want to work isn't the case - the majority not working are financially secure having drawn down early on pensions, are on benefits and quite happy with the status quo or are simply not able to work for various reasons. The idea too that companies will be forced to offer better wages and applicants will come flooding in- sadly I think you will just be taking people from one job moving to another, not actually sorting shortages .

I'm afraid I'm with Bob Geldof on this, it was better to be in the tent pissing outwards than outside the tent pissing in.

That's interesting. What exactly do you mean?

Don’t forget many south indian Criminal cartels are making fraudulent immigration applications which grants people entry to the UK and once here they apply for asylum. I live in london and the numbers of intl students with fake documents are astounding!!

There are tens of millions of true asylum seekers in UN refugee camps who are not even given the chance when people play the system.

This article should illuminate what I am saying more eloquently:
Sky news link

if people have £30,000-£50000 to give to criminal gangs then they should automatically lose the right to asylum. Labour should make it their policy.

I think the rise in house prices also means that people can retire when their work pension starts (eg after 35 years of work), sell their house in the SE or city centre and move north or somewhere cheaper buying outright. Then live on the small pension with no need to work.
There are unforeseen consequences to most things.

@Tots678 unfortunately that has a knock on effect- I had to go to Manchester, York and Leeds this week- so being nosy had a look on Rightmove- mmm not that much cheaper in the nicer areas!!

There was a programme on the radio recently about fake marriages. A female immigrant whose visa has ended gets pregnant - pays about 10,000 to an agent for a UK 'husband' who visits the hospital when she gives birth for photos, then she puts his name down as the father and as she has a British child gets to stay indefinitely.
Another one was young Indian coming in without visas then getting into a UK university to study thus avoiding overseas uni fees. Paying uk fees.

That the more immigrants you have, the more services are needed for a larger population. So there are more job vacancies created and so even more immigrants are required. Ad infinitum.

Why is legal immigration a problem for you?

And since it is, why are you happy with EU immigration (we have no reciprocal arrangement with the EU)

And they could all be doctors ?

Wow.

And you stopped and worked in your head how that is a crock ?

Or (just a guess) you swallowed it hook line and sinker.

Please tell me (if you have a job) it's not with numbers. Or anything important.

We have millions of people on benefits many of whom could work but just don't want to.

Unless you're including pensioners we don't!

Visa processing? For where?

@ladykale legal immigration isn't a problem for me- although a fair bit of it is nothing like the 'high end immigration' the leave campaign and gvt were touting- I am in a business centre that does visas (I'm not part of this )but I really don't think vast amounts of immigration from places like India and the phillipines is quite what a great many voted for- and if you say they didn't --then clearly you were not reading the kind of nonsense pre and post Brexit on Facebook and Twitter that I was - most of it had nothing economic about it at all- it was all about too many immigrants.

I am talking about EU immigration/freedom of movement pre Brexit not now-at least it was reciprocal with many advantages for commerce .

@MwahHaHa for uk residency ,

It's not a no brainer, because many people I. Britain (despite not having qualifications) still want a high paying job with no responsibility or accountability, that's easy and to work from home and won't bother if they don't get something that aligns with that

@ladykale that I agree with -