Wanted, BRITONS who want to work: Mail survey reveals why new jobs are going to migrant workers

[pecanpie]

Official figures, released this week, showed that nine out of ten jobs created last year went to foreign nationals.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has warned that Labour created a welfare system that made it pay not to work.

Among the native applicants there was little evidence of the long-term unemployed looking to take their first step back into paid employment ( it's obviously much easier to stay on benefits than to go out to work for the same money)

Full article

Badgers, I was being a bit sarcastic with my GCSE in music but I do agree with you about IT and also the way we spoon feed our kids rather than teach them to think for themselves. That said, such teachings would involve allowing them to take risks and fail which is not the done thing in our health & safety, no competition cotton wool world.

On the welfare front, yes many western EU countries have good welfare systems on a par with ours. But guess what, they're not the ones by & large emigrating to our shores. The ones where we are receiving way more people are the eastern european states like Poland, Latvia etc. And I know quite a few people from those places, the latter intimately. And let me tell you that their social security is nothing compared to ours.

For example in Latvia, unemployment benefit is timebound. You get it for so long then nothing. You get a form of child benefit. It's about £8 per month. That's pretty much it.

And migrants cant just automatically get all benefits but yes, some they can. For the main ones like IS, housing benefit etc. they have to pass habitual residence tests which when they first arrive, they cannot. My partner wasn't eligible for them even though she'd been living in UK for 4 years because she had returned to her home country to have a baby for 4 months, thereby breaking the length of time they counted. But she did continue to get child benefit and the childrens element of tax credits.

Just skim read the article. People who don't receive benefits will take these jobs. Once they are established in the country and eligible for benefits it might be a different story. Fortunately lots will return home once they have acheived their goal which is to work hard and save up for a better life at home.

Every government where ever it stands should be making work pay and something needs to be done. I don't know what though.

I am still looking for a job. There seems to be a complete dearth of employment that would fit in with DDs school hours.
I am prepared to do anything, I did phone up about a pharmacy dispenser. 54 other applicants had beaten me to it.

"And migrants cant just automatically get all benefits but yes, some they can. For the main ones like IS, housing benefit etc. they have to pass habitual residence tests which when they first arrive, they cannot."

Sorry, you are absolutely right. I thought you were referring to the rules that did exist for the first batch of eastern European nations that joined the EU and have now been dropped.

And the HRT is almost intentionally left legally vague so I'm not sure at what point someone could then go on to claim those benefits you mention.

Badgers...neither do the DWP it would seem! My partner was told when I first met her she wasn't entitled. Then later she was....then no she wasn't and can she pay everything back they gave her!

My main point really is that we have a benefits system which discourages work, a media led society which leads our kids to have unrealistic expectations and education system which pumps out kids who often cannot read/write to any acceptable level.

In that context it's an employment perfect storm and it's unsurprising 'all them foreigners' are taking the jobs.

Employers don't want to have the effort or expense of training people. So they have lobbied the Government to let already trained people in shutting out unemployed Brits. It is short term greed on the part of business which will ultimately destroy the economy. It does not matter which party is in. They'll huff and guff a bit about this but do nothing because they are all bought and paid for by big business.

Anyone who wants to understand this story, rather than just enjoy getting themselves porked by their Daley Male, should read this:

www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/7204008/right-to-reply-why-do-so-many-new-jobs-go-to-foreigners.thtml

Bollocks. How many of the jobs are 'seasonal', 'temporary'? Typical DM bollocks.

Of course, they were all phony jobs. They never went into the immigration status of all these applicants, just 'British people don't want to work' typical lazy tosh.

I'd work for £2/hour, too, if that meant the equivalent of £10/hour in my home country and I didn't have to house and feed myself and 4 other people because the other 4 were in another country being kept by someone else, meaning I had no childcare to worry about, either, so I could definitely work all the hours god sends.

And let's not even go into the fact that many of these hospitality industries won't even look at British applicants because they know they can exploit foreign workers for cheaper.

My husand only got hired because he had a heavy speaking role and they needed that to convince the tourists they were in bloody Brigadoon. His bosses, all Brits, even go so far as to joke about that.

It didn't actually reveal 'why jobs are going to migrant workers' did it? Even the Mail couldn't stand up their own 'British workers are lazy' schtick. (Am a journalist, it's clear they tried very hard but the facts just didn't fit.) All it revealed was that in one of the scenarios they dreamed up they got more foreign-born applicants than UK nationals - but in the rest I think I'm right in saying most applicants were from the UK.

And I think it's ethically very dodgy, placing fake advertisements for fake jobs at a time of high unemployment. Very unfair to the poor sods who put time and effort into replying, when they could have been applying for REAL vacancies. If I had been tricked into wasting my time on one of these D Mail non-jobs, I'd be considering going to the Press Complaints Commission.

btw, thanks Millie for the Spectator link - interesting piece.

Where we live we comment when we are served by someone with a UK accent, bit like it's noticeable when you ring a call centre and get someone from the UK, in its rarity.

Perhaps it's the nature of the work that they'd advertised for (low-level, hard-grafting type) that somehow then got more foreign-born applicants than UK nationals. Maybe British-born applicants want to work in 'office' jobs?

I don't think it's ethical at all though to raise these people's hopes through dodgy/fake adverts. These people would have spent significant amount of time at a computer printing/emailing their CV to the Mail. How awful to be tricked.

FWIW, in my work place, just on my corridor alone, there's a China born, a Pakistani-born (Aussie passport holder), an Albanian, a Portugese, an a Brit. Next corridor, there's 3 Brits, 2 Romanians, an American, an Italian, a Pakistani-born British passport holder, a Greek, a Spaniard.

I call bullshit on that one.

Reverse racism employers think the British are lazy, we are releasing kids into the workplace who can't talk properly, can't write proper, can't add up without a calculator through no fault of their own the schools fail them.

Our country is too expensive, the minimum wage too low, native born people need to live, they have families here, they can't live in a multi occupancy flat share for there whole lives to suit the employers who will not give em a decent wage.

My parents live on a council estate the flat above and two flats below are privately owned by a landlord who rents them out to eastern European workers, the 1 bed place has 12 people in it sleeping in bunkbeds and the other 2 flats are no different. no one should have to live like that, they don't mind because they are only going to be here 6 months while they save a few quid for the future, to buy a home at home.

What are we to do? I worked 6 days a week and earned £1 above minimum wage and still could barely afford a flat share, got less to live on a week for food and travel then someone gets on JSA, JSA is meant to the least the government thinks a person needs to live on a week, yet plenty of hard working people are struggling on less then that after paying all the bills and taxes.

And then they have the cheek to moan that people are not saving for retirement?, how are people to do that, stop eating?. (besides what are we paying all that tax for, what happened to the welfare state, isn't my tax money for my future? for the NHS and my state pension?.

Nothing wrong with the benefits system it's the disjointed nature of everything else thats to blame, houses no one can afford to buy, over priced rents, overpriced food, no caps on the amount energy companies can price hike, over taxation on everything, overpriced transport systems and fuel costs, all underlined by rubbish wages that haven't increased with the cost of living over the last 20+ years and a minimum wage thats a joke.

Sure it was all fine when they where creaming off the workers, loans, payday loans, mortgages, credit cards getting people trapped in endless debt and credit, paying off the minimum every month is what they wanted they loved it, but now that train has crashed we all fucked, stuck with the high cost of everything that the buy now pay later society created.

You want the poor to work? pay em enough to live on then and give them a decent free education so that they actually have a chance of getting a job.

Ryoko, well said.

I'd all so like to add that people from other countries bullshit on their CV in the hopes no one will check it, at DF workplace they need 3 years checkable work history and they get so sick of the lies because they do check they have to by law for that job, how many other employers bother contacting companies in countries like Africa to check? not many I'm sure.

I was unemployed for 11 years, applied for supermarkets, cleaning jobs, street cleaner you name it, at least 20 jobs a week, they just don't want anyone who hasn't all ready had a job or at least says they have and they think immigrant/migrant workers will work harder end of.

'the 1 bed place has 12 people in it sleeping in bunkbeds and the other 2 flats are no different.'

It's illegal to rent to so many in such a small abode. Report them to the council. I know in Edinburgh they are really trying to crack down on landlords who do this.

'It's illegal to rent to so many in such a small abode.Report them to the council.'

Yes, this would change the situation a bit. I can't see how foreigners can afford accommodation in London. Do they pay their council tax? You can only afford to live there if you are illegally overcrowding or living on benefits and having the gov pay your rent.

When they're renting someone's garden shed in Slough, chances are, they aren't paying council tax.

It's exploitive and dangerous to rent a 2-bed abode to so many, that's why many councils are now trying to root out rogue landlords like this.

Well said Ryoko. i agree with every word.

They're not right about why I don't work

I don;t work becuase I am a carer

I hope to go back when ds4 starts full time school next eyar but the cut to my TCs (will be £50 pw for each child on middle rate DLA) means I may not be able toa fford the extar cost of specialist SN childcare.

Hopefully Dh can arrange his hours so we can juggle if not then the cuts will stop me getting back in; after school club for NT kids- £6 per session; Sn chidlcare more than double that.

'And I think it's ethically very dodgy, placing fake advertisements for fake jobs at a time of high unemployment. Very unfair to the poor sods who put time and effort into replying, when they could have been applying for REAL vacancies. If I had been tricked into wasting my time on one of these D Mail non-jobs, I'd be considering going to the Press Complaints Commission.

Valid point Edam.

And temporary work etc- some of Dh's former colleagues would ahve 2 or 3 for several months then go home, but if you want to have a life as well- caring for chidlren or whatever- then it's nigh on impossible to find childcare at short notice (sister manages a chain, 6 months notice needed for a place) or anything that covers rent on a 2 bed.

I am not wholly anti the reforms: I agree about making it a one step system- my friend is a single mum and doesn't get CSA help as her ex now lives abroad (outside Europe), he takes their son for 2 weeks in teh sumemr but that's it. She lost her first job in retail working nights when her BF packed up and left leaving her without childcare, and her current job is a zero hour contract: that mens if she gets a lot of hours a week then none the next the council wills top any help she is due and take up to three months to sort it out, leaving us and other friends feeding her from our freezers. She works every hour she is offered, how is that right?

And DH seems to be constantly updating TC people about his income (self employed) as we get paid by current eyar and yet they enver even answer the phone so we always run risk of overpayment if we take on extra work whcih is scary whenw e know we face an income drop next year....

These are the things that hold people back. Six PT jobs for six months when your partner is caring for the kids in another country is doabled, long term with a Rl family sitiation not so much.

Thanks Peachy. I used to run investigations for a consumer magazine and we would always think very carefully about the ethics of, e.g., testing NHS Direct - is it justifiable to waste the time of call-handlers and nurses? We consulted a panel of health professionals (who decided that at that time and in those circumstances, it was justifiable, and helped us draw up the scenarios - scary results with plenty of nurses and call handlers missing someone with angina who was deteriorating. Hope it's improved since then.).

The amount of hoops I have to jump through just to get my crappy little MA Diss through ethics committee is unbelievable.

Shame not everyone follows the protocols.