It was reported in the Independent today that Australia is to try to recruit 31000 British workers, in particular medics, teachers, police officers, plumbers and builders. It is hardly surprising that Australia feels it can benefit from the situation in Britain by tempting workers with higher wages, whilst the British government feels it’s fine to allow the pay of British workers, in particular medics but others too, to fall far behind.
This country already has a dire shortage of doctors, and a labour shortage in many other areas too, and this recruitment drive will deprive this country of further medics and other workers when they are so badly needed here. We have had many threads on Gransnet over the last few years discussing the difficulty of getting an appointment with a GP and if this recruitment drive is successful, as it surely will be, we can clearly expect to wait even longer to see a GP as many more will leave and take their skills to pastures new. In fact waits for everything from a doctor’s appointment to getting a builder to do work will become longer and more difficult to obtain.
What is to be done? When will the government actually understand that the answer to Labour shortages is not to make people work till they drop (thus avoiding paying a pension until people are pushing seventy) but to pay a rate commensurate with the level of skill? We need a highly trained and skilled workforce but we are haemorrhaging highly skilled workers already, we cannot afford to lose another 31000.
