Immigration, how did we get here?

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How have we come to a place in the UK where we don't seem to be able to provide our own workforce, whether it's bar staff, surgeons or brick layers?
I know we have an aging population, but surely that can't be the only reason.
In the case of bar staff and cleaners, when we travel in Europe, it seems to me that those roles are taken by locals. Why do we have to import people from Europe to do it?
Please don't treat this as a goady thread, I am genuinely puzzled by this.

Certainly in Italy, where I have friends, relatives and acquaintances, staffing issues are the same as here. They really struggle to find minimum wage staff, and have had to pay higher and higher rates. They are increasingly reliant on migrant workers.

In our area a lot of people particularly women don’t want to work too many hours because it will affect their Universal Credit.

How does that work in your area? Here if you aren’t working full time you must apply for work and if offered it take it or have your benefits docked.

Sorry the rules have changed now, basically if you earn above a certain amount your UC will go down.
A lot of mums keep their hours lower so they don’t have the childcare costs and they can still claim UC.

Because it's mimimum wage mostly. I find a lot of 'British' people look down on those people in these roles - it's awful. Then, theres some who don't want to work for a minimum wage role; never did well in school and expect £40k a year.

We've just come back from Northern Spain and most of the staff in our hotel we spoke to weren't local at all. Scottish, Irish, Polish, German, Hungarian, etc.

But, you're not allowed to do that, unless.your children are below a certain age.
Plus, 80% of childcare costs are covered.
The amount I can earn before the 55% deduction applies, is £93 a week. At minimum wage, that's 8 hours. There's no way Universal Credit would allow anyone claiming it, to work just 8 hours a week.

I recently had major surgery, and they phoned me the very next day, to say I hadn't done enough hours that month, and would need to look for a second job. They declined my fit note.

I don't know why people on Mumsnet perpetuate the myth that claimants are allowed to keep their hours low.

In the eighties when I had just left school it was rare for people to go to university. I went to grammar school and got good A levels, but went straight to work, as did most of my friends. We went into offices, banks, trades and started our working life at 18. Some went to university which they had a grant for. So we started living adult lives earlier.

a few years later it was promoted by the government of the time that everyone should aim to go to university. The polytechnics became universities and there was an enormous building programme with all sorts of new courses invented that children could take to get ‘the university experience’. Colleges promoted these courses and the kids who would have originally learnt a trade were persuaded that they would have a better future if they went to the new universities’.

the jobs that were once seen as good were looked down on and became hard to fill. We had to rely on Polish builders and Eastern European baristas to serve our coffee.

the vast university system kept churning out people with little work ethic and high expectations because they now had a degree and didn’t want to start at the bottom in what they considered menial jobs.

and here we are…

Because workers rights within the UK and the rest of the world have been eroded into non existence over the last 40 years.

Unions, if there is one, have had their power stripped.
All the negotiations, battles, strikes and suffering our parents and grandparents went through to improve working conditions have been trumped by greedy tyrannical world leaders, multi million pound mergers, private corporations, share holders, CEO's and right down to Directors.
I should have been retired this year (60) but thanks to successive government enabling these conditions I've another 7 years of this.
The public were mis-sold the premise 'everyone should be able to attend university' and the carrot of achieving high earnings with their degree'.
Fact is, no, some are actually just are not cut out for it and a life of working your way up from the bottom is a more practical a viable way for them...
The utopia of the perfect work life balance is achievable - there's just different ways of going about it.
Ps. I'm all for immigration - it's a natural evolution of life. We just have to not exploit people with greed. If only life was this simple.

Man made industries have taken over traditional jobs- city, money jobs are entirely made my man to benefit the man for greed- she says working in an investment bank :)

If there's one thing I would like this government to try and tackle it's the attitude that manual labour is not worthy of respect.

We are desperate for good quality workpeople and for those who aren't academic it would be a far better idea for them to do something physical rather than going to university.

In some countries the welfare state is much worse so people do not have a choice. People may bemoan amounts but there is something even if deemed not enough. Blair messed up with his idea that huge amounts should got to University. I was there just as this change was happening. By the time I retired the quality of the student population overall had declined and you just knew not all of them would end up with a graduate level job ever. I was not in a vocational subject. By the end I hated doing any work related to UG admission's because I felt like I was lying. DH is close to retirement he teaches in a vocational subject with really high employment rates and amazing salaries.

@Sugarsnapper your last paragraph rings true. HE is now in crisis both Universities I worked in are facing redundancies as is DH workplace. It’s going to be dire for those left behind.

It’s every U.K. government- the snobbery from Blair onwards, everyone must go to uni- why?! For 50k of debt and a 20k job- honestly I would love my daughters to have a trade, make their own hours, not be a slave to the rail commute.

Housing costs renting/buying and general cost of living and min wages - I assume.

You are more likely if passing though to tolerate low wages and poor conditions because it's not forever - it's supplementing travel experiences or study or exchange rates means amount earned is more in home countries.

Lack of career progression opportunities and training in many industries like hospitality probably doesn't help.

Also p/t work and studying many employers seem less understanding and flexible than in previous decades - many of DH who in HE students have to quit job near exam times due to lack of flexibility from employers.

Over the decades the amount earned in low paid jobs doesn't keep track of inflation as well - so wages as inflation erodes spending power.

Junior doctors and nurses - highly skilled jobs - have seen their earning power erode over time and working conditions in NHS worsen - we also haven't trained as many as needed - so struggle to retain one we have trained and have gap in number needed so will have to fill these will immigration as well.

Brick laying - it's lack of training and investment in training - at least that what FIL a brick layer by training says - also don't think it's an area that gets mentioned much to kids these days.

Absolutely. Plus their gap ya and university experience extends adolescence into early 20s. Suddenly, someone used to long holidays, a lot of freedom, little responsibility, saddled with enormous debt is faced with the prospect of starting at the bottom of the ladder, working longish hours for low pay doing a job they consider beneath them.

I went to university in the 80’s. So did most of my cohort. It wasn’t rare.

Not Europe. But my parents live in Hong Kong. They import a lot of labour. If you watch expat (the one with Nicole Kidman) on Prime, it's a very accurate presentation of it. Same as Singapore where Dyson has moved to. They can't find locals to fill many jobs.

I'm just saying it's not a UK only issue.

It’s a bit of a Ponzi scheme as you keep needing a larger base as people age

Also the pandemic and / or approach didn’t help. Although other countries experienced similar and had shortages or higher immigration after

So, any ideas about an answer?
I think the government house building push will soon run into the sand if immigration isn't brought down.
But we don't seem to be able to produce workers, whether professionals or blue-collar.
And thank you all for your insight about this not being uk-only

Because the benefits system disincentives work.

Because of an ingrained, multi-generational entitlement & dependency culture.

And because, for those who can obtain a diagnosis of some sort of made-up chronic illness, mental health condition or spurious ‘disability’, life on benefits is an attractive alternative to a crappy, monotonous minimum wage job. So immigrants are needed to fill the gaps.

When I was 13, (in the 70s) I worked as a pub cleaner. At sixteen I waitressed in a cafe at weekends, and worked in a toy factory over the school holidays. At 18 through 21, I worked as a barmaid while doing my degree.

Fewer teens seem to work now. Plus there are a lot more cafes, bars and restaurants so more hospitality jobs and a greater shortfall.

I've picked fruit, worked as a courier, babysat. I was always looking for ways to bring in more money, but our society is wealthier now and has higher expectations.

The Blair/Brown university policy was deeply flawed. Wanting 50% to go to university made no sense when not 50% of jobs are graduate careers. So many young people saddled with debt and frustrated that they can't get a well paid job.

I agree, but then they were emulating the German model, which seems to have worked OK?

Of course it was rare. Just look at the numbers. You were one of a very small - relatively speaking - group.