Immigration population up another 700k

[Atallglassimdof]

I understand that this country needs immigration but if you import 100,000s of low skilled workers, in their 30s and 40s, how are they going to fund their retirement or pay for their housing?

It just seems counterintuitive to bring loads of people into this country who will need considerable financial support ( housing benefits, pension credits) when they are no longer able to work, and don’t have the means to support themselves.

This was local to me.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-67594499.amp
A couple of years back, some delightful men (uncle and nephews) celebrated the end of Ramadan by chasing down a man of adifferent religion/appearance and hacking his leg off with such ferocity their machetes were warped and broken. One of the attackers only received a suspended two year sentence

The police coyly referred to it as "life changing injuries" until the footage of the attack started circulating in our local WhatsApp groups.

They are very keen in general to downplay the amount of sectarian violence that goes on here, but I have personally witnessed three separate attacks in the past 18months.

Be happy someone wants to work.

Ah so we are proposing now taking second home houses. Like nobody ever paid for them. Just come clean as communists. Ridiculous to even mention properties legally paid for.

The way the authorities have been knocking on doors for discussing certain topics online is making me worried to post anything!

Weird!

We had a right wing Govt that has bought in more migrants in its last 3 years than Blair did in his 10 years as PM.

You and others aren't prepared to pay the taxes required to boost pay in care/hospitality/NHS.... so these jobs don't attract UK staff and people leave to work in a supermarket.

So what DO you want???

See, that is a really interesting question - maybe because I would think it disadvantages poorer / developing countries when richer ones lure away their skilled workers. Good for
UK - sucks to be a poorer person stuck in a developing country with too few doctors etc. It’s strange to me that it’s so acceptable to poach skilled workers internationally.

It’s truly frightening. Comment after comment showing complete lack of awareness and basic economics. There’s just in a huge echo chamber

Its going to implode

In the hospital settings - they do a lot of work, so of which way above their pay grade. Even, the community they do a lot managing and administering medication, behaviour de-escalation, writing care plan, change tubes, dressing. I think it undervalued because it is mainly women who do this type of work.

What is going to implode? Mumsnet?

You don’t need any formal qualifications to work in a care home. You can literally take anyone of the street. Is it a difficult job? Yes, but it’s not highly skilled, that isn’t to say it’s not important, it is. But bring in 100000 of people to do?

It may be minimum wage on paper but when you aren't paid a petrol allowance, are out of the house 12 hours and only paid for around 7 of them, it actually amounts to less than minimum wage. Plus zero hour co tracts so no chance of a mortgage, no sick pay, no ability to plan anything....

I don’t think every (low skilled) person coming to this country is going to work in a care home.

Thinking of legal migration, women (wives) are coming not to work. Frankly neither are the men. I have never seen a man of Pakistani origin working in the lower ranks of healthcare.

The men I see in care homes are from sub-Saharan Africa. They are particularly working in the high-security mental hospitals near me. That is obviously a difficult job with unsocial hours and good luck to them.

Not true, maybe illegal immigrants. Those who come legally have to pass an English test before they get their visas. Once they are here, they have no recourse to public funds which means they cannot claim any benefits (housing, UC, child benefit etc) until they get their settlement visas which is normally after 5 or 10 years depending on visa type. It even says so on their visas. Also they pay a health surcharge to use the NHS so it’s not free. You can’t even renew your visa until you pay that fee. Also they pay taxes which means they are paying double.

This post is basically summing up the nonsense propaganda.

The English test is total nonsense that most people could pass. And their multiple dependents don’t even need to pass that.

Earning the low average wages they are earning means they are taking more from the system than they are contributing.

The NHS surcharge is a pittance. It wouldn’t been cover the cost of private medical insurance if they bought it for themselves and their large families.

And no, no one immigrants on salary is paying anything like enough taxes to pay for themselves even once, never mind twice.

Agree. Many come on student visas, attend the bare minimum of classes and just work. Sure, students doing legitimate PhDs, medicine etc are paying a fortune - but these are mainly wealthier students from the Middle East and China.

Students from poorer countries like Pakistan and parts of Africa are more likely to abuse the visa system - many universities allow students to not pay their fees until the first 12 weeks of semester have taken place so the students can come and go underground without paying a penny.

Last year I helped my friend sort out residential care for her mother. It’s an absolute minefield. Her mother has dementia so if she was unhappy in a home she wouldn’t be able to tell my friend so extra care and research had to go into finding somewhere that felt like a second home to someone who couldn’t articulate what that looked like.

The mother is now in a private care home which is lovely. But it’s expensive, £1350 per week which increases by 6.5% each year. A direct debit has to be in place before a resident is admitted, and if they can no longer afford a placement then they have to move elsewhere as the care home doesn’t accept local authority funded residents at all.

Ironically it’s actually cheaper than some of the mixed funding care homes she also looked at.

Apparently local authorities don’t pay the full rate it costs to accommodate and look after residents, they have a maximum cap of what they’ll contribute. In my friend’s area that’s £678 per week if the older person doesn’t require nursing care and £780 if they do. That’s quite a lot less than the costs the care home needs to receive per resident. So they increase the costs to private payers to offset the loss they make from local authority funded residents.

Care homes used to be local authority run, now they’re mostly private. Private ones need to turn a profit as part of their business model, either for direct shareholders or for the pension funds and hedge funds that own them.

So whilst local authorities may spend eye watering amounts on adult social care, if more care homes decided they couldn’t accommodate loss-making arrangements with local councils in their business model, then frankly the local authorities are totally stuffed. They sold off the care buildings and would have nowhere to send vulnerable old people.

Well in the interim , these companies/ organisations are hiring people that want to work. Needs must. Look I know people who look down on care jobs and nothing to do with pay or zero hours. It’s too stressful or beneath them and it comes from a place of “privilege “. If you didn’t know where your next meal was coming from you won’t be picky.

20% of pupils in London schools are white British.

Does it really matter?
Does it matter if 5% of pupils in schools in London, or Birmingham or Luton or Bradfield are white British? Does it matter if it’s 1% or 0%?

The issue I think the OP is getting at is that saying we need a constant stream of immigrant workers to fill low paid positions is a Ponzi scheme.

If immigrant workers are needed to do the jobs that the British-born are ‘too lazy’ to do, then at what point do their offspring join the category of British-born? One generation? Two? Unless you only mean jobs that white British born are too lazy to do?
In which case this isn’t going to be an issue as the white British population of London declines, right? Those descendants of immigrants will be happy to work in the care sector.

Except they probably won’t. Care work is low-paid, low-status and often insecure. As immigrant family become settled they aspire for their children to secure better jobs. So as they age the country will still need a supply of immigrant workers to fill the jobs the British-born (no longer likely to be white) aren’t prepared to do.

Labelling jobs as ‘low-skilled’ isn’t really helpful, they’re low paid. I’d argue care home workers are more skilled than tv presenters but the pay and associated status doesn’t reflect this.

birth rates are at an all time low

What’s concerning is the idea that far too many immigrants might not be coming here to integrate but instead to reshape the country into one resembling their own. Their religion is sometimes seen as intolerant toward others, and there’s uncertainty about who these individuals are, their backgrounds, or whether they’ve committed crimes or have connections to terrorist groups. Successive governments seem to have neglected the safety and security of this nation, and it’s no surprise that many people have become indifferent to these issues.

I don't mind them taking jobs that British people don't want to do. We all know that our culture tends to look down on and undervalue vocational training and manual labor. If immigrants come to do these jobs, that's great.

What’s concerning is the idea that far too many immigrants might not be coming here to integrate but instead to reshape the country into one resembling their own

Which country would that be? And who is organising it all?

It’s a valid question, and the short answer is that we do that as well. We employ and train graduates, but need experienced people to do the job while they’re learning (and to teach them). Even then though there’s a shortage of British graduates with the right skillsets and attitudes - despite all the news stories of supposedly excellent un/underemployed graduates, we still had to take half our grad intake from overseas last year.

We also tried setting up an apprenticeship for school leavers but it failed dismally - there was a serious attitude problem among the two intakes and we concluded that anyone who was any good must still be more keen on going to uni so refocused on graduates.

I also created (and put a huge amount of effort into) a direct recruitment campaign targeting British people without degrees but who could demonstrate other relevant skills or aptitude for the job. This was offered with flexible working - we can’t do term-time-only contracts but did offer PT days/hours around school times - but there just wasn’t the base I’d hoped there might be.

It’s a STEM-type job where numerical aptitude is important - I honestly think it’s the case that we just don’t value these skills enough. The PP who said we shouldn’t bother teaching people maths kind of proves that point, sadly.

I think it’s much more a class issue. I know plenty of South Asians making the same claims and the unifying factor is that they are solidly liberal left and middle class with comfortable incomes and lives that don’t intersect with the problems caused by the recent influx of migration.

We've already tipped over that threshold. We have fewer babies born than people dying now.

It does make you wonder....

Ahem.... might be daytime in Russia though 🤔