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?

The customer needs to vote with their purchasing power. Care home, crèche staff paid at minimum then the customer can go elsewhere to a place that pays higher wages. Of course it will cost the customer more but at least they are sticking to their values. Businesses will react. It’s similar to buying products - do you buy the cheapest that comes from industry in low wage countries or do you buy from a local business that costs more?

It's easy to say "pay more", but those saying this, do you know the exact costings? Is it financially viable?

The people who really need to pay more are local authorities and the NHS. Care home fees for most self funders are often used unfairly, imo, to subsidise LA funded residents. If LAs and the NHS paid at the same rates, as self funders, care homes could afford better conditions for the care staff.

However, the LAs and NHS would then need more funds from the government….The best solution is the German one, imo.

What’s the German system?
For everyone complaining about the minimum wage as a customer you can vote with your feet and go to a place that pays higher wages. It’ll cost much more no doubt.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5342026-accessing-healthcare-on-a-zero-hours-contract?page=1