Foreigners

There are plenty of people in the richest economies in the world who have to just get by, for whatever reason.

In the fifth richest economy in the world people shouldn't have to live lives that are do-able

People don't move just to London for jobs. There are jobs for people with manual skills in other areas of the South East, where accommodation is (slightly) more affordable. The people we have living here from the North East are mainly electricians and machine engineers and some builders. They're mainly sub-contractors working on short term projects. The Eastern Europeans work as car washers, window cleaners, removal people, gardeners, carpet fitters (males) and catering, care work, supermarket staff (females). Most of the people I know about are here without family. Some of them have left their families at home, so it's not an ideal life, but it's do-able. People do move from the North.

I was just thinking of single youngsters without jobs - but the same principle applies.

Jess you are so right about setting yourself up with home and job. We know a young man who was living with in laws which was not a total success so wanted to branch out with his partner and 2 small children. At the time they qualified for no benefits they knew about because of living with family. They needed £1,000 to actually get a place to rent - half for deposit and half for the first rent. As luck would have it his family were able to help with this and more till they got on their feet - they needed to buy furniture etc and the BHF shop was a great help with this!

Yes there are still "sandwich" courses in universities. I think its called "a year in industry".
The question about why people can move from EU but not from outer reaches of N England and Wales...
I have thought about this quite a bit. Many of the EU migrants that come to London etc are pretty well educated and are looking to improve their English as much as anything (try talking to someone from E Europe working in a hotel for instance - many are graduates). They are able to move to London because they know someone who can put them up (or even recommend them for a job in a hotel or similar). They have a couch to crash on and some friends or relations to show them the ropes. They also presumably have a few euros in their pockets to get by until they get a pay packet.
If you live in a god forsaken estate somewhere and know not a sole in London, launching off to find a job and somewhere to live is a huge hurdle. If you've been on benefits and come from a poor family, you aren't going to have the money to even get to London, let alone survive your first month.
Always interesting talking to immigrants. Spoke to a taxi driver earlier who had a strong Pakistani accent. Asked him about his family. His son has just done a master's in Durham in natural sciences and got a research job in Kent. His daughter is in university, also studying science.

speye.wordpress.com/2016/10/24/no-job-no-council-house-in-labour-run-slough/

Do you know anyone living in Slough in a council house?

DH did that for very many years, it was nicer and less impersonal than living in a hotel or boarding house during the week.

We also have people from the North East living in town, mainly as weekly boarders, so it's not just EU citizens. Most of them seem to live in spare rooms in family homes.

We moved away many years ago too MaizieD and my heart has sunk on occasional visits back again. It seems so busy, crowded and so much traffic .....

Not five to a room, but some do live in cramped conditions. I know somebody who rents out a three bed house to six Eastern European adults. Even students aren't keen on sharing rooms these days.

Not 'it's', 'it'll'

Rigby,

If the UK unemployed can't afford to move to the SE how do the EU migrant workers manage? They can't all be living 5 to a room in substandard housing...or can they?

Sadly this is one of the consequences of focussing resources/companies on London instead of developing the regions. London seems to me to be like a voracious monster, eating up all in its path and getting larger and larger and hungrier and hungrier! I'm glad we moved away from the SE 40 years ago...

Still, maybe it's slow down a bit post Brexit when all the jobs have gone off to the EU...

What I can't understand is how here in the SE we will manage if unskilled workers are not allowed in. One example, our care homes all always have vacancies for social care assistants even when paying above the living wage. Of those in employment, many are EU citizens. Unemployed people can't afford to move here from elsewhere

That could take a long time.

One of Corbyn's ideas is to get EU unions working together to increase the minimum wage in other countries so that their workers will not need to come here to get a better wage.

Talking of sandwich courses...

MacDonalds has created a foundation degree with Manchester Metropolitan. Plymouth University runs a surf studies degree.

People get a bit snobby about these kind of degrees, but they are providing advanced vocational skills, which is what the country needs.

I'd love to see academia working more closely with industry, full supported by the government, especially the Treasury.

BUT it takes time, planning and commitment, which the UK isn't very good at. I think there will always be a place for immigrants, because it's just not possible for anybody to foresee what kind of skills will be needed in 10 or 20 years. That's why the free movement of labour, facilitated by the EU, should have been an advantage and, in fact, many British citizens have taken advantage of the opportunities.

Oh dear dd that sounds like we are well and truly stuffed then!

I think the problem with your idea, Rigby, is that it doesn't sit well with the Conservative's cherished policy of 'shrinking the state' and ending regulation for business. It leaves the country with no strategy for rectifying skills shortages as individual businesses see no further than their own concerns and a levy on business is seen as interfering with their freedom to spend their money in the way they think best. Companies seem to prioritise maximising dividends to shareholders (a 'rational' choice as it makes the company more attractive for investors)which doesn't lead to investment in training; particularly if, as has been pointed out, it is cheaper to bring in trained people from abroad.

Some companies do invest in training; I was listening to an interesting programme about apprenticeships tha other day; companies run these not only at a basic training level but also at degree level. One of the interviewees was an apprentice with a bank. She entered at post A level as an alternative to University and is in a management position and working for a degree funded by the bank.

But it seems to me to be foolish to rely on all companies having a farsighted strategy for training.

I recall there was a lot to be said for Sandwich courses.Are they still in existence? My ex-DH did his degree via a Sandwich course and was told by one of his 'sandwich' employers that they much preferred to employ ex-sandwich course people as they had had hands on as well as theoretical experience.

Of course, a weakness of Training boards was that there were always stories about incomptence and misdirection of funds attached to them. People much prefer to lambast an organisation for its faults that to look at the good work it is doing. Of course, if it isn't doing good work it does need to be exposed but media analysis rarely goes as far as a thorough investigation of a story.

You're right, Rigby, but that would require a long-term, joined up strategy .

It's likely to be decades before we could get the balance right. For a start, we'd have to train hundreds of teachers/lecturers/mentors...or import them. Then we'd have to get industry working in sync with training. There's no pint training loads of builders if investors won't invest in building and planning laws won't let people build. There's no pint in having loads of doctors, if people are expected to diagnose themselves online etc etc.

We need to be flexible about training, because people are likely to have to retrain at least once in their lives, which means rethinking benefits for middle-aged people. They can't take time out to train, if they have a family to support.

PS. I remember the Construction Industry Training Board, because I have a relative who worked for it. I never really knew what it did.

Bit lost here. Which of nn's posts is a logical outcome of which others?

Over half of the total number of immigrants come from non-EU countries. The UK has always had total control of the number of immigrants from those countries, but we haven't, because we need the people.

People wouldn't need to be taxed to extinction. Immigrants are not a homogenous group. Many of them are highly skilled, filling skills gaps, paying taxes and contributing towards products whioh are then exported. The UK earns billions from foreign students, which is why Hammond wanted to exclude them from immigration caps.

Other immigrants are doing low paid work, often below their skill level, because the UK has an ageing population and needs younger people to support society and the economy. And so it goes on....

The government(s) should never have made empty promises to bring the net immigration figure down to below 100,000, because it was never going to happen and it won't in the foreseeable future. There are far more than 100,000 immigrants from non-EU countries, despite the tightening of eligibility criteris. There are over 30,000 immigrants from Ireland alone, eligible since an agreement from the 1920s. It would be a very foolish government which tried to change that.

Even with Brexit, it's highly unlikely that immigration could ever be brought down to the kind of figure people have been promised, unless there's a total collapse of the economy and I don't suppose many people want that.

One issue of course is our complete failure to train sufficient people to be our nurses, doctors, technicians, engineers, plumbers?. Who remembers the Industrial Training Boards and the Infustrial Training Levy? Who abolished them? It's much cheaper for firms/companies/organisations to poach from abroad through immigration than to have to contribute towards making us self sufficient in skills and training by growing our own. That's an example of a policy that would eventually impact on our being able to reduce immigration and at least I've tried to contribute to the debate by putting forward an idea- anyone else care to join me?

I don't think the post is a logical extension, it's a reductio ad absurdum which does not contribute to helpful debate. Is clear that immigration policies are not clear, well thought through or working. Is Corbyn really saying anyone should be able to come in? Really?

nn's post is the logical outcome of what others are demanding. So how would they have managed to reduce immigration? To improve and increase NHS, education, housing, law and order? Only by taxing everyone to extinction and thus bringing the country to its economic knees. There is no easy way to manage this situation and any government can only do its best.

but anya I also found nn's post of yesterday 18.27 also unhelpful in contributing to a positive tone on this thread. The sniping comes from both 'sides'