To wonder if Labour actually will be any better?

[Baabaagreysheep]

I think like most people I am keen to see the back of the current bunch, but I am not confident that anything will massively change for the better. Maybe that’s a bit pessimistic, but I feel that while some things will improve some will get worse - and some sort of at the same time, so I’m expecting my salary to go up but also my workload to go up!

Thinking back to when Labour were last in power it was another world, really. Interested in views.

I don't think they're perfect or will instantly solve all problems; but at least they will be much less likely to make things dramatically worse. The current Tories are at best weak and incompetent, at worst ideological fanatics with too many links to the American Right. The latest idea that some Tories have come up with- of preventing foreigners from coming to work in social care - absolutely TERRIFIES ME OUT OF MY WITS, given the existing social care shortages.

Here you go. Apologies that it’s The Guardian but it sets out the facts.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/03/cutting-carers-nhs-new-conservatives

Fact check: Tory MPs' plans to cut social care worker visas by 100,000 to reduce immigration (inews.co.uk)

Fresh Tory infighting sparked by right-wing group’s radical immigration plan: ‘The last thing we need’ (msn.com)

I do think we need to clamp down on immigration tightly, at least until we start to build enough property to accommodate people decently. And, forgive me, I do think people who have lived here all their lives, of all racial origins, should top the list of priorities. Recognise any provable qualifications quickly, so they can work. Refugee families next. Economic migrants after that.

But we need economic migrants in jobs like care and agriculture. There aren’t enough people who have lived here all their lives who are prepared to do those jobs.

We have more than enough people in this country already. The government need to work on reducing the population, not increasing it.

Regardless of whether or not that’s true, those people won’t do those jobs or there wouldn’t be a recruitment crisis in those sectors. There are 165,000 vacancies in the care sector alone.

They clearly aren't paying high enough wages.

There clearly aren’t enough people.

Since the 1960s, there have been seasonal agricultural worker schemes in the UK, and every European country has made use of them. I did the vendange in France in 1977, for just under 10 francs an hour, after university. (About £1.20 at conversion rate then). Then Spanish agricultural workers, now Romanian or Moldovan. If you understand agriculture, the demand for labour rises and falls over the growing seasons, and peaks with harvesting time. The technical bit of agriculture in the UK, when skill is essential, is filled by contractors with the know how, but harvesting it requires few skills but lots of attention to detail.

And no, I'm not volunteering to pick fruit, simply because I am 67, and it is a young unskilled person's work. An afternoon picking fruit to make my own jam, I can do but picking for someone else's profit, no chance.

If they were paying £1 million an hour, would there be enough people? If the answer is yes, there are enough people and the wage just isn't high enough to make the job attractive.

Why don't the homes just employ staff directly?

Every heard of automation? Rather than suppressing wages and living standards by being hooked on cheap foreign labour.

@Swrigh1234 so what do we do till automation? Pretend all is well and staff shortages aren’t happening?

Automation in agriculture is not some far flung scientific aspiration like flying to Mars one day. It is literally NOT rocket science. The technology exists already. But just like every other industry in this country, the agriculture sector is addicted to cheap labour. Why invest in technology if you can get cheap labour, doing untold damage to the country’s productivity and living standards in the process.

Automation in care isn’t so easy because part of a care worker’s role is social interaction, plus a good care worker will pick up on health issues.

UK farmers hoping that automated systems will fill the gap left by a chronic shortage of seasonal workers for picking crops will have to wait until at least 2030 for the technology to mature, a new report from the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) says.
techmonitor.ai/technology/ai-and-automation/uk-agri-tech-seasonal-workers-farmers
This report indicates that we don't have the right tech skills yet and that elements of systems aren't ready -

The Review of Automation in Horticulture describes three waves of technology implementation that can produce labour savings and increase worker productivity. The first wave includes optimised production systems, packing automation and field rigs and mechanical systems – all of which offer minor labour savings and are widely available for mass adoption

However, the second and third waves are made up of technologies such as autonomous selective crop harvesting, AI and collaborative robotics assisting in harvesting and produce-picking and autonomous crop protection. These are still in development and are not ready for commercialisation due to the significant amounts of capital required. Autonomous selective crop harvesting isn’t expected to be commercialised until after 2030, the review says.

Did anyone see Sunak's latest wheeze to get more NHS dentists? To get people who aren't qualified to do it. He mentions 'therapists'. Like you'd really want someone not qualified to be messing around with your teeth.

How would you automate care work?