Proposed minimum salary for EU workers: £30000

SirChenjin. The immigrants will be filling jobs that would command salaries of £37,500, whether the person in them was already in Britain or coming in from another country.

This does beg the question that many of the jobs with the most unfilled vacancies - in the NHS, argiculture etc. - all pay much lower salaries and while it sounds very noble when government ministers talk about not allowing immigrants to underprice British people out of jobs, it begs the question as to whether those on the unemployment register have the skills to fill these jobs. £37,500 is well above the average wage and most of the jobs vacant will require educational qualifications or professional skills that are probably not present in many of those seeking work.

I agree - I said that in one of my posts from earlier today

I do find it somewhat perplexing that as the number of school-leavers going on to university in this country has increased hugely, since most of us left school, this country has such a skill shortage.

Is this related to the reduction in apprenticeships so that the school leaver who might, in our generation, have become a plumber, now ends up with a 2.2 BA degree in media studies and can only find unskilled work in McDonalds?

varian you are not far off the mark, certainly the lack of apprenticeships in the industries most in need of skilled workers is part of the problem, but the other problem is the way universities have been driven into a market economy where they have to provide courses in subjects students want to study, rather than in those subjects the economy is most in need of.

The result is a reduction in courses in engineering, physics and foreign languages and an expansion in less challenging subjects in the social sciences and the 'creative' subjects. The rapid expansion of those studying drama, music and art (as distinct from Arts subject)s. Although the balance has begun to change since the cost to the student, of getting a degree has risen.

Back in the day, people also used to go to "night school" to train for skilled jobs, which no longer exists.

The army and some big nationalised companies, such as BT (or whatever it was called) and British Gas, used to take on school leavers and provide quality training.

Interestingly, most of these were traditional male jobs. Females had a much worse deal.

growstuff Probably about 10 years ago the research arm of BT decided to stop hiring graduates and offer some apprenticeships instead. The young son of some friends applied for one of them (along with over 700 young people) and he was selected. The scheme is ongoing.

In that case I'm wrong and am very pleased. It actually contradicts what I'd heard, but that's OK. I wasn't talking about graduates, but school leavers - and a lot longer ago. I know somebody who came through BT in that way and worked for them for decades, before leaving to become a freelance IT consultant. My understanding from talking to him was that they used to take on thousands rather than hundreds. Another big trainer was the coal board. Apart from employing miners, it also took on young men to be trained as engineers. Ship building/maintenance was another industry which trained engineers.

There are certainly training programmes but nowhere near the number there were when I left school 30-odd years ago. My eldest is now at that stage, although he's gone down the university route doing engineering - his friends don't have the same variety of opportunities for apprenticeships etc, although they are sill available. Far too many non-degrees - universities have become industries, churning out often pointless research to justify their funding and leaving students in horrendous debt.

There has been a real attempt in recent years to re-introduce apprenticeships, but the problem is that the over emphasis on the 'prestige' of having a degree has led many professions to seek to be graduate professions in order to get taken seriously by government. The latest is the polic wishing to become a graduate profession.

Back in the 60s and 70s, most professions, including law, accountancy etc, would have half a dozen different ways of recruitment for people with O levels and each level above. The fewer qualifications you had the longer the training and the more exams, but my closest friend trained to be a solicitor starting from a handful of O levels and a misspent youth between 16 and 20. She retired a judge on a healthy six figure salary.

I had other friends who went into similar professions from low exam levels and did very well. We need to return to this multiple level entry system for all those professions that do not require the applicant to master a large university taught knowledge base before they can undertake their profession,
for example doctors or teachers.

growstuff From what I remember talking to our friends (the boy's parents) this was a "new" scheme that BT was trying. It seemed that they were fed up with graduates, who demanded more money for no extra skills, apart from having a degree which might not have been relevant. They'd therefore decided to try school leavers and apprenticeships.

The boy asked his parents' advice on what to wear for the interview, which surprised them. The interview was in several parts. A large group were invited along in the morning where they mingled with BT staff over coffee. Most of those were sent home home at lunchtime and the reminder then had more interviews. As far as I'm aware the young man still works for BT and is enjoying it.

My former neighbour went down the apprenticeship route, doing HNC at night school and ended up at the research centre. He took early retirement and after a couple of years started a company which set up call centres.

Before posting my earlier comment I did check on Google to see whether the BT scheme still exists and there are several listed.

M0nica I went into the accountancy profession in 1972 or 3 with A levels after a few years misspent in London. This meant 4 years in articles and studying at night.

My first memories are of using an Olivetti listing machine and learning "credits by the window, debits by the door" and extended trial balances on lined sheets of A3 paper.

I enjoyed it but I think lots of young people don't. Through conversations with young people (now in their 30s and 40s) I've learnt that many went into the professions following parental advice and subsequently let to do something different.

There are quite a few companies which are taking on more school leavers, but they're still not taking on anywhere near the number which companies previously (pre-about 1980 took on). It was the normal route for school leavers (male ones anyway) into skilled blue collar and some white collar jobs.

I agree with MOnica and SirChenjin.

I know that one of the big accountancy firms is taking on apprentices. They have to do the AAT first and then go on to a professional qualification.

Here is the let out from “Conservative Home”

“Flexibility would also be brought into this new system so that occupations and key services that experience shortages, such as in the agricultural and healthcare sectors, can recruit quickly from overseas, and we would expect economic migrants to have a job waiting for them upon arrival. A cap and visa system that accommodates our economic needs would help restore public confidence in immigration policy.”

So despite the headlines nothing much is going to change, in addition they will find that other sectors like Building and Engineering also cannot recruit U.K. workers

What about science and education?

Wake up, David. A lot has already changed for non-EU immigrants and if it's applied to EU immigrants, there will be a huge change.

That's Project Now!

The majority of migrants are recruited by employment agencies at present. Employers don’t bother to call the Labour Exchange they just call the Agency, when the contract is finished the agency places them elsewhere.
That’s the way it will have to work in any new system

Surely the economy should be planned so that we do not require hundreds of thousand of people from outside to come in to make it work.

It’s actually around 2.4 million EU and 1.3 non EU nationals working in the UK according to the Office of National Statistics, it’s going to take quite a while to administer quotas and visas for all those. If Ms Patel is expecting a rush of UK workers to take up jobs she is going to be disappointed.

But the headline does make good pre election propaganda

The majority of migrants? Stats please! It could be true in certain professions, but not the ones which which I'm familiar.

And what's the Labour Exchange? You seem a tad out of touch. The JobCentre hasn't handled vacancies in any meaningful way for decades.

MOnica, Long-term it probably should, but the economy actually benefits from having the flexibility of mobile labour. Think about big infrastructure projects or seasonal industry, such as agriculture or tourism.

UK citizens have always benefited from contracts, such as those in the Gulf or in Germany after reunification.

You don't seem to be discussing the proposed minimum wage threshold, but have gone off track again.

OK, wage threshold £37500 - £20 an hour that’s above most skilled workers pay rate most construction workers, health workers and teachers would be below that so I guess it’s young graduate level professionals or managers that are going to be eligible.
Do we need more graduates? I seem to remember nearly 60% of our graduates are not doing graduate work.