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.

There is a skills gap because employers recruit from overseas and have little interest in developing our young people.
Need a computer engineer- recruit someone from India with 5 years experience whilst a university graduate gets a job in Tesco.

International student numbers have dropped hugely in the last couple of years.

These discussions always end up very polarised.

Immigration is a net positive and we need immigrants. I don’t think that is deniable.

However the amount of immigration matters (imagine 5 million a year-still great?) and their cultural and educational background matters.

So, if you accept both the above, which seem fairly self evident to me, the discussion is about numbers and composition. It does need to be controlled.

Personally I think the numbers are way too high at 1%/annum. We can probably successfully absorb 1/3 to 1/2 of this. But that is very discussable as I can’t objectively justify the number!

We need care home workers.

There are plenty of people in this number who will only here for a couple of years, ex-pats for a set amount of time, interns who need a year abroad for their studies, academics on a research year/guest lecturers.

We are a international company and have regularly people from HQ for 1-2 years, they gain experience or cover a position because of maternity leave/sabbatical and it's easier than getting a temp as in-house means they already have tons of knowledge about systems, procedures etc.

These people pay taxes, yes, they access the NHS but often don't require schools as they use international schools so their children can move back to their home education. But they won't need pension or housing benefits as they won't be here in the old age.

You also have another issue with hiring in the UK - we often need someone with language skills, the UK is notoriously bad at this. My DD had 5 years Spanish in school, she can order a drink but never even read a short story.

There should be more initiatives to improve the standing of the care system, proper degrees for staff for example to make it more attractive as a carerr.. My mum is in a care home in Germany and the nursing staff there as a similar training to hospital nurses and a similar pay.

Not that I'm anti-immigration but according to the ONS we've had 3 years of lowering job vacancies, May was the lowest number of openings in 4 years - the economy needs to grow.

True, a friends son, IT degree, works in M&S, on the shop floor, their IT helpdesk is in India, which apparently enabled the recent company hack....

He applied for loads of jobs, all with "Sorry, great interview but you don't have any experience"

All that debt too.

That's fair. Don't blame the immigrants though, they're coming because they are "allowed" to

By paying better and improving conditions. Not by allowing it to remain as it is because there will always be people with no choice but to accept current conditions.

I agree with the PPS who said that caring work is highly skilled. It’s undervalued because caring is seen as a chiefly female skill and because it’s mainly women who do it.

Except that the university graduate probably did some sort of social studies or history degree and then wonders why there isnt a job market for that.

We have over educated parts of our society for nothing and they end up working in admin or bar work etc feeling disguntled with a massive debt.

We have also undermined valuable, necessary parts of the workforce by putting those jobs down that they do, you often see on here and I hear it in real life 'you'll end up working at Tescos'

Well good, who do you think organises your food in Tescos (other supermarkets are available)

This! Corporations love immigrants workers. Even in the NHS some managers prefer workers from abroad as they are easy to bully and exploit.

This is exactly what I did. I loved care work but the low pay, high staff turnover, unsociable hours, and inability to ever make plans outside of work as rota would change halfway through the day, made it untenable. I now work in further education.

What a disgrace! So glad my children are leaving this year.

As usual when immigration is discussed the poster has to persist through a barrage of accusations of racism, being Nigel
Fatage in disguise, denial of the statistics etc. I live in South London and it’s clear to me that there has been a recent upsurge in arrivals from India. Obviously quite recent and culturally very Indian . Providing visas to Indian nationals was also a condition demanded by the Indian government in recent trade negotiations with the U.K. It’s true that care homes rely heavily on foreign workers many of whom are Indian. But is importing more and more foreign workers a solution? They will stay, have children, need housing, education, and in time hospital treatment . We can’t keep adding to the population like that, it’s a Ponzi scheme.

It isn't a government job @dottiehens That is the Reform spin on the actual facts.

I think it’s true that these discussions always end up very polarised - it reminds me a bit of Brexit debates.

It’s circular - one side tends to spout misinformation about the government hiring Sharia law consultants, and then the other side brands that racist nonsense and refuses to listen further, then the other side feels unseen and unheard and makes up more racist nonsense about schools rebranding ‘Christmas’ to ‘Winterval’, and the cycle continues.

Also, some of us are old enough to remember people have been having these conversations and predicting the ‘Islamification’ of the UK for well over 30 years, peaking in the noughties - I remember 20 years ago when Melanie Phillips published the book ‘Londonistan’ which was basically a whole book saying that Britain was breeding an Islamic terror state within. None of the dire predictions have happened.

I understand, OP….The problem is where Mumsnet was generally working class mums living in the thick of it years back, its now become middle class mums detached in their comfortable market towns or London town houses living very comfortable lives, so I doubt you will get much empathy here….On to the matter, its not sustainable, thats the bottomline.

Immigration generally is kept up by all parties for a few reasons, it keeps wages low at the lower end of the nations employment sectors, it keeps housing prices rising and it inflates GDP. All of these have an effect to the population. Services and products might be able to maintain lower cost to customers but wages become stagnated as the labour pool is swamped. Housing is at risk of becoming unaffordable.

There is also another problem which has to do with integration, if immigrants do not integrate and simply settle within their own, there is a risk that these communities can become their own states within a state….We have seen this already.

The biggest problem now is we are a country in a downward economic trajectory. Products and services continue to rise. This is in part to a global economic downturn. This then creates many problems.

Without going on and on, immigration is needed. Sustainable immigration for skilled workers. What we have seen is open floodgates, absolutely unsustainable and if history has taught us anything at all, this could potentially lead to catastrophic consequences which, as history always shows, the comfortable middle class always want to bury their heads in the sand over until its too late.

So your children.....will be immigrants somewhere else!!

Well you are happy but many aren’t.

I think this is an interesting point which deserves further scrutiny. Does our industry bake in poor wages meaning immigration from countries where the money goes further is inevitable? This is really interesting from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation:

www.jrf.org.uk/care/our-acceptance-of-low-pay-in-social-care-costs-us-more-than-we-think

I wasn’t aware of this.

Generally on numbers we do need a way to start managing without high increases.

I actually can understand people who voted for Brexit on the basis that it would reduce immigration feeling very put out that numbers have drastically increased instead, but it was a very predictable outcome.

if history has taught us anything at all, this could potentially lead to catastrophic consequences which, as history always shows, the comfortable middle class always want to bury their heads in the sand over until its too late

Which history do you mean? Which events are you referring to?

Yes SOME of them work in the NHS. But not all of them! Are people too stupid to understand that if we import millions who all require NHS treatment (and then bring along elderly family members who require a lot of NHS treatment, despite not having paid in a penny) that we will have more people using the NHS than before, ie resources will be stretched further?