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

[Locutus2000]

The latest Labour lunacy chasing the coat-tails of Reform.

"Care homes will be prevented from recruiting staff from abroad as part of an overhaul of rules to drive down net migration, Yvette Cooper has said.
In a change that will concern employers in the sector, the home secretary said providers should instead seek to employ foreign staff who have already come to the country or extend existing visas.

It is part of a preview of wider plans to be announced by Cooper on Monday designed to reduce net migration to the UK."

"In a series of interviews on Sunday, Cooper said the government would not set a figure for net migration but would target recruitment in lower-skilled sectors.

Speaking to Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Cooper said: “We’re going to introduce new restrictions on lower-skilled workers, so new visa controls, because we think actually what we should be doing is concentrating on the higher-skilled migration and we should be concentrating on training in the UK.

“New requirements to train here in the UK to make sure that the UK workforce benefits, and also we will be closing the care worker visa for overseas recruitment.”

Asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg where care homes would recruit staff from, Cooper said companies should recruit from a pool of people who came as care workers in good faith but had been “exploited” by unscrupulous employers.
“Care companies should be recruiting from those workers. They can also extend existing visas. They could recruit as well from people who are on other visas, who are already here. But we do think it’s time to end that care worker recruitment from abroad,” she said.

While Cooper declined to set a specific target for net migration, she said ministers believed changes to certain visas could result in “up to 50,000 fewer lower-skilled visas” over the next year."

Care homes have been at breaking point for years, few Brits want to work in them and those that do often burn out rapidly. I did several years and couldn't do it again.

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?

I get that not everyone is suited to care work, but if the wages and conditions were forced up then more would find the calling. At the moment the costs of supporting these carers who are barely making a living wage and who are probably still sending what they can back home falls on the taxpayer, I'd rather that we find a way to get more out of work people who are already here into these roles, even if it still requires some form of state subsidy - we are giving a lot of these people subsidies at the moment anyway.

Why only doctors from those countries?

It will definitely require massive state subsidies or more likely women will be pressured into picking up this role again - for free.

How is it cheaper? We pay either way.

Do you understand the difference between a small cost now and a bigger cost later?

I am being sarcastic.

I do think people should be paid better and conditions should be better. Letting people in on care visas basically reduces the cost to the care home but costs the taxpayer in the long term as low paid workers go not pay enough into the system to keep them in old age.

Care homes have been at breaking point for years, few Brits want to work in them and those that do often burn out rapidly. I did several years and couldn't do it again.

So what's your thinking here - it is ok to burn out overseas workers with crappy money and working conditions.

I really wonder at times how it is that people who think of themselves as kind progressives can say things like this without their heads exploding - ah, so kind, let's recruit people amendable to employment exploitation so we don't need take care of our own elderly/grow our own food/etc. Those anti-immigration Reform people, such bastards!

I'm not all hot for Reform but Jesus, some of the people that oppose them are so blind to their own motives it's hard to believe.

Do you think you need any other skilled workers apart from health and care workers? What about students? Without their fees the universities collapse.

Here are the Immigration Rules - I would love to know which categories you'd cut out. I'd happily abolish the Overseas Domestic Worker provision which I think is often abused, but that would barely make a difference at all to numbers. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules

Why would you think an Indian or Filipino worker wouldn't be disgruntled or disinterested?

Is there something about people from those continents or countries that makes them better suited for care work, and grateful for it?

If so, what do you think makes certain races/nationalities better at care work and more grateful?

Or is it just that you think those races/nationalities working in the UK would/should be more grateful for care work so shouldn't complain about poor pay or conditions whereas UK born and bred would?

Do you think that might be a bit of a problematic attitude which has led the UK to be in the situation it is now?

Seems completely crackers.
the only way this could possibly work is if pay and conditions dramatically improve to make us Brits actually want to do it, but not heard anything about that

I’m a fully paid up Labour member btw

I think they are totally trying to play to the reform crowd. I just won’t believe that KS and Yvette Cooper think this is actually a good idea.’

Well, Keir's White Paper has come out. Lots of crackers suggestions. I can see net tax payers fleeing. Reform has got him scared.

Wow those are a lot of questions @TipsyGreenSeal! What is your solution?
My solution will be to care for my mum myself so no skin off my nose either way.

I think there are two kinds of scenario with people like that. One is people who are essentially grifters, and honestly if their support was cut off they would find work.

But there are also people, and there always have been, who are marginal in terms of things like intelligence. And there used to be a lot of jobs for people like that, often casual work, and that doesn't really exist any more. Jobs that used to be done by children, like managing construction road signs, now require certifications and safety training, as well as finishing school. And the numbers of jobs even like that are very small.

She didn't say that. It is a proven fact though that many immigrants have a work hard ethic. People who came to this country from India eg knew they had to work hard. They were slated for it initially for having their shops open all hours of the day. They encouraged their children to work hard as they knew education was the way forward. These people have built established communities. They reared families. Immigrants anywhere in the world have had this attitude. They knew what they were leaving. They had the desire to prosper. This attitude is not always seen in many of the lazy people we have born in this country.

Problem with that is that a large proportion of Reform voters are the White working class 'old' traditional Labour voters (and quite a few working class non White voters)

@TempestTost

"So what's your thinking here - it is ok to burn out overseas workers with crappy money and working conditions.

I really wonder at times how it is that people who think of themselves as kind progressives can say things like this without their heads exploding - ah, so kind, let's recruit people amendable to employment exploitation so we don't need take care of our own elderly/grow our own food/etc. Those anti-immigration Reform people, such bastards!"

Great post.

I completely agree. I just don't understand why progressive left leaning people would support the importing cheap labour on crappy wages and poor working conditions so that the companies employing them can continue to make high profits rather than increasing salaries and improving conditions that would attract UK nationals.

If anything it should be the conservative right wing in favour of importing cheap labour so that companies can make higher profits.

Most Indian people who came to the UK and 'opened shops all day long' were Middle class wealthy groups expelled from Uganda and other areas of East Africa. Those shops were their own businesses. They were largely not working for other people for minimum wage. That is wholly different from people living in HMO's and working all hours in jobs they hate for minimum wage (if that) so they could bring over several dependents who do not work.

This has not been thought through. If we pay care workers more (which we absolutely should do) then it is the NHS and Local Councils who will pick up the bill. We can’t put more money into these organisations as that would mean more tax for everyone which is political suicide. Off course if these organisations became more efficient then this wouldn’t involve taking money from other services but we have been trying to do that for decades and it isn’t going to happen overnight.
I know of one particular mid sized group of homes which relies heavily on overseas recruitment due to particular local geographical issues as they can’t match local high wages to recruit UK workers. Follow the reaction up the chain and you get more difficulty in discharges from hospital which is what causes bed blocking and further deterioration of patients, increased A&E waits etc etc.

The solution has already been proposed in the Governments plans.

Recruit from existing immigrant worker populations and from the UK.

If that means wages go up then that's what it means.

We can't continue as we have been as it clearly isn't benefitting the economy and I fundamentally disagree with the let's be honest, racist idea that immigrant care workers are needed because UK workers can't be bothered and that immigrant care workers are somehow better because they'll put up with poor wages. poor working conditions etc.

When they are often doing that to access the other benefits of being a worker in the UK.

Those 20,000 are only the ones who come over here to work as doctors and nurses. You'd be surprised by how many foreign-born carers are qualified doctors and nurses in their home country.

A lot of universities should collapse. If acting as fraudulent visa mills is the only thing keeping them in business, they shouldn’t be in business any more.

If anything it should be the conservative right wing in favour of importing cheap labour so that companies can make higher profits.
They were. That's why this immigration policy was a Conservative policy, brought in by Boris Johnson, and why they have a 'Look over there!' policy with the small boats. They massively increased legal migration because their mates wanted to be able to exploit overseas labour, as they do in their beloved Singapore while pretending that the main problem was illegal immigration.

I personally think the way to fix this would be to get rid of most of the made up useless jobs and tell those people they need to find work in an actually useful capacity for society.

So, lets say, (and this is my personal list I am sure others might quibble with some of my choices,) most people in advertising, most people working in DEI type stuff, a lot of personal consultants, YouTube influences, many professional entertainment athletes, hedge fund people, a good chunk of the insurance industry could be made illegal which would free up people, professional lobbyists, many HR people, I am sorry to say a lot of people working in the third sector....

There are a lot of sectors that are essentially built on the assumption we have our basic needs provided for. But if we don't, those people would be better deployed doing essential work. There are also whole sectors of people who are essentially in jobs created to employ people with stupid degrees which could be almost entirely abolished (many consultants.)

It is a muddle but if there’s anything today has shown is that a politician like Starmer will switch from ‘dog whistle’ to ‘island of strangers’, reminiscent of Powell, in a heartbeat.

Left / right it’s a dogfight rn as Reform looks likely to get in.

Ok.
Racist is an easy word to toss around.

Going to check back here in 5 years to see how this works. Maybe it will. I doubt it though.