to believe the UK should take highly-skilled Venezuelan refugees

[longfingernails]

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have had to flee from the inevitable consequences of unadulterated socialism.

Amongst them will be highly skilled workers. We should do our best to seek them out and offer them refugee status together with the right to work in Britain.

If we are selective in our choices, in time they could form as effective a bloc as the Floridian Cubans.

Australia has a very good migration policy. It turns back the illegal boats, with a clear points based system to fill positions of need.

I think we can do better though. We should actively seek out the best people, and give them tax breaks and other incentives to move here. If the asylum policy can be used to facilitate that, then all the better.

Honestly, I'm not particularly concerned about the impact of brain drain. Maduro decided to continue with Chavez' insane policy of socialism; he can deal with the consequences of the best people leaving.

We should not hesitate to take advantage, we should do what is best for Britain.

You are confusing Australia's migration and refugee/asylum policy.

Boats of refugees are sent to the processing camps off shore.
Their applications are assessed NOT BASED ON THEIR SKILLS. Refugee applications are based on whether they meet the criteria to seek asylum, ie that they face persecution or death in their homeland. An unskilled persecuted person is the same as a skilled persecuted person.

Australia does have a point based visa programme too. This is a separate policy, aiming at bringing in workers with certain skills. It does not involve processing camps. People in processing camps cannot apply for it. Australia does also have a variety of programmes to bring in unskilled workers, many on short term visas primarily for agriculture work.

Don't conflate the two things.

Ps. The processing camps are a disgrace.

starzig - We are struggling to recruit people with the correct skill set at my work. We would be happy to employ suitably qualified staff wherever they may be from.

Why can't your company train people to the required level needed?

I know, because it costs money and requires some effort. Companies are far to lazy to invest - they rather take a migrant workers who accept less wages. And watch their employees struggle because of the ever increasing tax burden. Because the lazy non skilled unemployed British born person will spend a lifetime on benefits.

Why can't your company train people to the required level needed?

Bonkers statement. I’ll be the first to shout about the underinvestment in skills and training in this country - don’t get me started about how undervalued management skills are - but the suggestion that the only reason a business would be trying to recruit skilled workers is because they aren’t training people is barking.

Some skilled jobs are based on qualifications gained in higher ed, and people with those qualifications are in short supply (hi, maths teachers and nurses!). Some skilled jobs with job-based qualifications are based on education where we do not have enough graduates or students, and there is stiff international competition. (Hi engineering folk!)

And most obviously, sometimes (often!) a business will be recruiting a skilled worker because they have just lost a skilled worker who cannot be replaced with a new trainee, no matter how brilliant that new trainee may be some day.

A great firm with a thriving and amazing apprenticeship programme is likely to focus that programme on where they need the most skilled workers. They may have pipelines for more niche roles and will definitely be looking at succession planning. But talent pipelines are invariably at different stages of maturity, and sometimes people in your pipeline will leave. The idea that, if their brilliant, experienced senior process manager left then they would automatically have the skills at the right level in the organisation to replace that person because they have invested well in training is dopey at best.

Or of course the firm may be expanding and taking on staff at all levels to deal with increased demand. How dare a business be successful! Don’t grow until you have a surplus of skilled workers, businesses. It’s not allowed.

No, I don't mean disability benefits. I mean unemployment benefit, tax credits, and similar.

You do realise benefits such as tax credits are needed by working families on low incomes because minimum wage does not cover the cost of living in parts of this country. And they have, already, been cut drastically.

Whilst I am not against sharing resources to refugees, I do think the UK needs to invest in its own people and society before importing in more. Addressing the indigenous skills shortage and address the huge income/cost of living disparity would be a start.

What a truly depressing thread this is. So many hateful people in one place.

Still never mind we won’t be keeping anyone on under £50k per year,

Qualified nurses.
Some Doctors
Speech and language therapists
Physiotherapists
Midwives

That’s just from the NHS.

Yeah nirvana awaits doesn’t it?

You reap what you sow and I hope some of you truly do reap this as well. It’s the only way you might understand.

I don't want to import people based on their politics
which is what the OP keeps coming back to with their "Venezuela" immigrants

Trying to stack the deck for future elections ?

If not, there are plenty of fascist or religious hellholes with skilled people who would love an invitation
e.g. Russia and even the US now.

I am fed up with people conflating refugeeism with economic migration. Refugees are granted refugee status on the basis of the danger to their lives, nothing whatsoever to do with their skills. And yes, as one of the world's richest nations we should be taking a hell of a lot more than we do.

Such incredible ongoing ignorance is depressing, before we even start on the bigotry.

We do take in refugees and we all know the two issues are totally different - economic migrants and refugees and of course some refugees claiming asylum are economic migrants but that's a separate issue we can deal with.

I presume most people on the thread think we need some kind of system for economic migrants. What do people propose to replace the current system? I would certgainly put good written and spoken English language skills ahead of a lot of things for NHS workers for a start.

Yes agreed about the confusion between refugees & economic migrants!

To those of you saying "where will it end?!?!" - who exactly do you think staffs our hospitals, cleans our schools/ houses, works for care agencies, empties our bins? It's the low payed essential work that we all rely on to go about our daily lives that are staffed by people who originate from overseas.

If all these jobs were full of English born staff then people simply wouldn't come here for the work would they? I don't see why that's so hard to understand?

OP I don’t think you understand what the word refugee means

There are already highly skilled Venezuelans here- my ex boss is Venezuelan and there were three other colleagues who moved to the uk to get away from Chavez.
It’s difficult but not impossible to move here if you’re highly skilled.. the system is already set up this way to receive highly skilled migrants from anywhere in the world

Smiled not all and not in all parts of the country. Lots of british born people are cleaners. Our local council tip is mostly British born people.

We have a serious skills shortage in the UK

Why? We're excessively populated for such a small geographical place. Surely we should be doing something to address the skills shortage, rather than just importing people and increasing the overcrowding?

BigChocFrenzy

I am in the US. I don’t know anyone who wants to move to the UK.

I am in the US. I don’t know anyone who wants to move to the UK

I'm in the UK and don't know anyone who wants to move to the US. So that's one thing sorted .....

Australia has a very good migration policy. It turns back the illegal boats, with a clear points based system to fill positions of need.

Er no, that's not Australia's migration policy. That is Australia's offshore processing policy for people seeking asylum by boat, specifically. It does not apply to any other situation.

Exactly childofthesun

redneck In your libertarian circle of gun fans, I'm not surprised
However, the USA is a vast country with a huge range of different views.

The NHS for example has successfully head-hunted US surgeons & other doctors in specialist fields, who no longer want to work in a country where tens of millions cannot afford healthcare

Other skilled US professionals in many fields wanted to escape the Trump years and plan to return when he's gone.

Equally, some Brits love Trump, low taxes and a very limited welfare state.
So they move to the US

Those with marketable skills have a lot more choices, whatever their preferences

We have a serious skills shortage in the UK and if there are people with those skills leaving Venezuela and looking for a home it would be great if those skilled potential NHS workers came here. Clearly, we cannot rehouse all of Venezuela

Yes we do have a skills shortage in this country. You don’t have to think to hard to understand why.

Everything has got so academic that it has educated a lot of people out of a job or the requirements of a job need so many academic qualifications just to train that there are not enough people qualifying just to train

The NHS has a shortage of nurses. If you take a career that once you were able to train for/do the job at 16 and then make it a degree qualification so you now need A levels it doesn’t take a lot of working out that if you get someone with A levels who is studying for a degree the job at the end would need to pay and have better working conditions than nursing can offer for a lot of people.

Multiply this over all the careers that used to be done straight from school that you could enter without a qualification and that is where the skills shortage is happening

FWIW I know British born nurses who have been made redundant from the NHS so they can hardly be that short of staff

I'm from the US but moved to the UK because my husband is British and he has a better job then I had in the US.

Only on MN are British people so hateful towards any American and the US and act like it's a horrible place they wouldn't even want to visit. 😂

IRL tons of Brits I've talked to have expressed a desire to visit there for an extended holiday, talked about how great they think it is for the most part and others have expressed a desire to move there. Some have also admitted to envying our child's dual citizenship because of the freedom and opportunities it grants her.

Before I moved here many Americans I talked to about my move were very fascinated by it and expressed similar views about visiting and to a smaller degree moving to the UK. Less are interested in moving here long-term because of the housing problems here and how much house you can get for your money, the weather also puts a lot off.

You have no idea what you are talking about OP. “I believe”. Well that’s just great. You just sit at home spouting your uninformed and toxic “opinions”. I’ll base my opinions on actual facts...and with a little bit of compassion.

But look at all those brain surgeons and doctor refugees that’s come to uk already...

We had a refugee family living locally. The man was a psychiatrist and took up a job at a hospital in Nottingham. And I've had 2 clients who were refugees: one was a civil engineer, now working in London, and another was an archaelogist, now lecturing in archaeology.

Never make assumptions about people's skills just because they fled their mother country. It looks a bit racist.