dailymail

Just been reading into this and thought it would make a good discussion -

So basically whats being said is that there are not enough jobs in the UK due to the amount of migrant workers.
I work in an industry where more and more (in this case polish ) migrant workers are being employed as temps, and generally the British workers, as they move job, retire etc are not be replaced by other British workers, more often than not a migrant is taken on.

Firstly I want to say that, in my experience, the polish workers iv dealt with are hard working and reliable, and genuinely wanting to learn more etc etc, so thats great.

If alot of the British lazy scroungers sat around claiming dole got of there bums and showed half the will to work these migrants do then maybe things would be different.

My real point is, in a country where things clearly are in a bad way, is it right that we have massive unemployment, yet UK jobs are going to migrants, and making it almost impossible for domestic job seekers to find work....do we think its right??

What do we think could, should be done??

A possible issue is that the migrant workers tend to take jobs that UK residents are too lazy, proud or stupid to take for themselves (eg farm work)

Personally, I think the solution is that if you claim benefits, you should "work for the state" - eg litter-picking, street cleaning, social care etc. Faced with being compelled to perform these tasks in order to claim benefits, I reckon many people would go and get a proper job

First of all, the original article came from the Mail, who would classify Attila the Hun as a loony libertarian lefty.

However I agree with the points the esteemed forum members have made above. There is a considerable minority in the UK that think that work is a four-letter word and that the State (i.e. the remainder of the population that work and pay taxes) will keep them in kebabs, beer and Rothmans. Unfortunately the recent exploits of our financial sector and the large-scale avoidance of tax by some of our largest companies do not set a great example - something for nothing and corporate corruption seems to be afflicting the UK in the same way as the rest of Europe (and the world).

Cheerful isn't it....

couldn't agree more, i used to work in the benefits department and it's staggering what some people get, it's no wonder they choose not to work

I think we need the wisdom of Shiny - he can put us right

And remember, it's the Daily Mail so it must be wrong...

No, but as with any media it is coming from a perspective and it is important to bear that in mind.

Does the story take emigration into account in its figures?

You've just summed it up. So how could it not be right to give the job to a migrant worker? Either that or nothing will get done at all.

I agree with most of the points above. I think it's a system that encourages people not to work.

In some peoples cases you can get more money receiving benefits than taking a job, so why would you work? Surely there should be some type of 'top up' system would be better for those wishing to work and for the economy.

I sometimes get irritated with the amount of money I loose from my pay each month to the tax man. However, in the fareness of arguement, I have benefited from education and my girlfriend takes more money out of the system than we put in with the NHS.

How many people want to pick brussel sprouts in Norfolk ? How many want to work as Barrista's in Costa Coffee ? How many want to flip burgers in MacDonalds ? How many want to work nightshifts in an old peoples home ? How many want to wash cars for £5 a pop ? and so on and so on.

Nope they all want/expect to be earning bucket loads because they were sold the dream of University education and a well paid job at the end of it.

So while they have taken jobs, they have probably not taken then jobs that people in the UK would have liked to take.

I cant see any way round this as we are never going to stop the benefits system (unless you want people starving or robbing the working).

What we need are entrepreneurs. And lots of them.

Actually, I cant improve on RichB's original post.

Straight to the point, we have far too much immigrant labour in this country.



Oh obviously. But if it was in the Guardian...

.... it was probably written and printed by an immigrant

What you need to do is go and buy all papers you can for one week, read them all then compare the content/articles and make your own opinions rather those pre-conceived fed by Jeremy Clarkson and all the other Guardian haters.

I much prefer a paper that reports news, rather than selective opinion, advertisements dressed up as serious articles or some half wit journalist who has never had the misfortune of being on benefits ranting on about the need to cut benefits. And I read the Daily Mail, Times, Telegraph and the Guardian. The latter really isn't the yoghurt weaving hippy left wing paper that some would have you believe. I dont vote Labour either.

And you will have to forgive me if I dont think that slinging all eastern Europeans into the English channel will somehow cure the problems this country faces.

Which the Daily Mail does appear to believe.

Although that would be good because then house prices will fall, which they wont like, so they will then run a headline sayng "Throwing Eastern Europeans into the English Channel causes massive house price drop" followed by "Lack of people willing to wipe OAP's bottoms in care home crisis" etc etc.

And so they will sell more papers and the cycle of hot air will continue.

Not that I actually care too much for the Daily Mail as my morning read, but then, surely your argument for NOT reading it as all the opinions are pre conceived by Jeremy Clarkson (does he even write for the DM?) etc, can be equally argued against reading the heavily left wing, liberalesque Guardian, no?

Can Mr Clarkson's views be dismissed as rubbish JUST becuase they differ from the Guardian's?

Regardless, my point is valid - had the Guardian released the exact same story, it wouldnt have been dismissed by the same people who would only dismiss it becuase it came out of the Daily Mail.

And vice versa it should be noted.

I really must start buying the Mail again, does it really believe that throwing eastern europeans into the channel is a worth while undertaking?

Has it not considered that some of the forementioned might be able to swim back to blighty??

Interesting...

Political bias is only bias if it doesn't support my bias

Ah, the calling card of democracy, in all its glory

I would like to point out the it is ILLEGAL to hire an immigrant worker becuase they are polish or whatever.

A company cannot take race, religion, age into consideration when hiring, so all this talk of immigrants taking british jobs is rubbish!

What is actually happening is that the polish workers who are applying for these jobs are the best suited for that particular role. Whether this be becuase they have experience, whether it is because they performed the best when they showed up, or whether it is because no one else applied for the job, it doesn't matter.

Immigrant workers will stop getting jobs in the UK if the UK based workforce were better than them.

Im not sure why this is not policy, perhaps first chance they get free training at a basic level, if they fail training it's to the turnip farm they go.

Firstly, its not illegal to hire a Polish immigrant.

Or any immigrant for that matter.

Secondly, whilst its true, and very obvious that immigrants to this country are not all simply here as 'labour', and many are highly qualified in their specific fields (no pun intended), a very high percentage are doing jobs that require zero qualifications, zero experience, zero education, and their 'right' to work and live here (thankyou Brussels) even though they can offer nothing except manual labour is frankly, wrong.

As is your assumption that immigrant workers are better suited to British jobs.

Whilst I would agree that in many cases, immigrant labour is the best option for certain jobs that most British citizens would rather not do, I fail to see how you can argue that a Polish immigrant is 'better suited' to pick vegetables, or flip burgers etc.

No, the main reason for companies to hire immigrant labour is... cost.

Even if they do it properly, and pay them the national minimum wage, its still vastly more than they would be paid in 'home countrrrry' and they will be grateful to recieve it.

Mr British will not be happy earning sod all doing a crappy job, and will want more etc etc.

However, times are hard, and if the opportunity was there, even the laziest would surely want to earn at least something rather than nothing.

You don't read what is written shiney. He never said immigrant workers are 'as such' better suited for British jobs. He said if you have a choice between people coming to apply for a job, you will pick the one that has the best quality/performance vs wage and that in (quite?) some jobs it turns out immigrant workers are performing the best. Because for the Brits that are applying, it's just a 'lousy job', while for the others it's an opportunity to earn money and bring food on the table. Why they apply for certain types of jobs? Because in those jobs they aren't limited by their lack of understanding on British culture, language, strategies, politics,...

Judging from your ramblings though, you want immigrants to get NO job, earn NO money,... and then you probably will shoot off complaining about how they 'benefit from the system without doing shit'.

I benefitted from the system in the UK once. While on holiday I had a minor personal accident and was taken to hospital to get stitched. Guess what: FREE! NHS! Yes, completely free. And guess who did the work on me! An indian girl, who was better at speaking 'Medical' than 'English'. Immigrants, huh?

As long as they're doing it 'clean' and declare taxes etc,... what's wrong with it?

Meh. I'll bow out of this one.

I'm always wrong, just like the Daily Mail apparently...

The reasons why this is not policy:

1. Legality - there is a minimum wage law in the UK, hence if somebody is working you must pay them at least minimum wage. If benefit claimants were asked to work for the amount they received in benefit then somebody would challenge this in court.

2. Cost of working - if the above issue could be won in court (and if it couldn't then the whole scheme is a non-starter, as you'd be using billions of pounds of tax-payers money to create minimum wage jobs) then you'd still have to find money to meet the additional costs of people that you're currently paying to do nothing. While they're doing nothing they have few costs, but if you ask, say, a parent with a child to work full-time for no money then you're effectively asking them to meet the ~£3.75/hour cost of child-care. Hence, after working for 17 hours they're paying the government to work. The same goes for transport, as we (taxpayers) would have to meet travelling costs.

3. Cost of administration - you're looking at an army of administrators to find unskilled work that needs doing, assign benefit claimants to jobs, monitor attendance and performance, sort legitimate reasons for absence from those skiving, check expenses claims, etc.

4. Economic impact - a lot of the unskilled jobs people tend to think of in this scenario are now outsourced to private companies. So either the government work-force competes against private companies and, therefore, takes jobs from the private sector, or these unpaid workers work for private companies, reducing their incentive to hire people on full pay, again reducing the number of jobs available. So, you're trying to solve the problem of unemployment, but actually increasing it.

5. Fairness - for those who are genuinely seeking work the requirement to work a full-time job could be seen as being quite a hinderance. This is one of the main reasons why signing-on is done only once a fortnight, rather than weekly or even daily (in the 1930s those seeking money from the PAC [Public Assistance Committee] had to sign as being unemployed twice a day!). This is especially the case in the current economic climate, where there's a lot of white-collar unemployment. Most people in those circumstances spend a lot of time searching job sites, writing covering letters, tailoring their CVs to the job, etc. (I know I did during the year I spent unemployed).

6. Political - political parties know that people have very long memories when it comes to this sort of thing. The treatment of the unemployed during the 20s and 30s is still remembered and still deters people from voting Conservative.

So, there you go. The reason that this policy isn't in force is that it's a feel-good policy for morally outraged, rather than a policy which makes things any better or does anything useful. Does that help?

Please read the entire section, i quite CLEARLY say:



I also never stated that:



I believe i said:






See the reasons i have mentioned above. To repeat, a person (immigrant or otherwise) only gets a job when they can prove a level of competence at it, or the propensity to learn it, which the employer deems acceptable. Or, in rare circumstances, when they are the only person to turn up!

Immigrants are therefore getting these jobs for one of the above reasons.



And if Mr British wants "more etc etc", then we have a marvellous education system in this country and those (much like alot of immigrants) who will invest what little free time they have in taking evening courses, home learning etc etc. To increase their value to potential employers. You would expect nothing less of ANY person that wanted to further their career.

Flash! Shiny in logical conundrum! Pictures at eleven!

Workhouses. Six months of signing on after which you receive nothing. If you don't like nothing then it's the workhouse. You'll get a bed, three sets of Primark clothes and three square meals a day as long as you work for 8 hours. Sort through rubbish into what can actually be recycled, stitch sacks (or "Fairtrade bags for life" I belive they're called these days), chaingangs of litter pickers, whatever. You'll still be allowed to apply for jobs and be given time off (and the loan of a Primark suit) to attend.

I can see it now - compounds of pre-fab building after prefab building fenced in with barbed wire the length of the country. It'll be far cheaper than giving them all houses and handouts to pish away. I think many glass-backs would suddenly find the will to pick vegetables then.

Ah, we can but dream of the day I become High Chancellor.

Why not just get them to stitch their own Primark clothes instead? In fact they can do any amount of 'sports' gear and knock up a few iPhones as well - sell it to the public as an initiative to help reduce child labour and the number of sweat-shops in China.

Somewhere, Nick Clegg has just exploded...

But will anyone notice or care?