Duncan Smith urges firms to hire unemployed Britons

ceridwen

Widelats wrote: »

In London the cost of living is far higher than where i live, i don't know how anyone is managing on minimum wage down there, and recently there have been advertisements appearing in Morrisons supermarket from people in London wanting a council house exchange to "Anywhere in the North East" - i expect they are desperate to get cheaper living than London is and will gladly swap homes to do so.

That DOES surprise me actually. Its obviously the logical thing to do - ie for those in the dearest and/or most overpopulated Southern areas of all to move to your neck of the woods - but I didnt think anyone would actually do so.

Hmmmm.....wanders towards wardrobe to put on 6 extra layers of clothes and follow them up there for a looksee...:)

EDIT: Cor ...just spotted a flat (only 1 bed. but still...) for £22,500 in County Durham and it looked reasonable....hang on whilst I pick myself up from floor. Reet....hot water bottle = check. Sheepskin boots = check. Warmest jumper I have = check.

nexus2011

Immigrants will work 80 hours a week at minimum wage so its a no brainer.

dickydonkin

dseventy wrote: »

Wow. What a comment.

I pay £8.80 a hour, plus a large element of peice work. This is for Brocolli, spuds, cherrys (hot house work).

You have to turn up at 4:30am this time of year for work.

Very few BABs get up for work at 430am.

Rubbish.

Many B&B's prefer not to work for unscrupulous employers who disregard UK safety and WTD legislation and prefer to come home from work safely.

Sadly, for people like those extremely hard working immigrants who lost their lives in Morecambe bay - their superb work ethic and desperation to make money cost them their lives.

Perhaps indiginous workers care more for their safety than immigrants - the number of foreign workers injured or killed here in the UK is worrying but tells an underlying problem.

Cowboy Capitalism is rife - particularly in agriculture and catering where many (not all) employers place their foreign workers at unnecessary risk.

Such workers, because they are grateful for the work, decide to say nothing.

Safety equipment (i.e. PPE) for many migrant workers is non existent - despite UK legislation requiring employers at risk to be provided with safety equipment at no cost to the worker - agencies are the biggest offenders in this respect - by far!

Little or no training is provided - and many would not understand English anyway - but what the hell - they get the work done cheaper and quicker - but ask yourself how!

ilovemydebts

Have to say these posts make me laugh. My girlfriend is Polish, highly qualified and works here doing 2 jobs. One is nights stacking shelves and the other cleaning at a hotel. At the night job she is given a time to complete the work and she does before the time is up whereas her fellow English "workers" prefer to wander around chatting. At her second job they prefer to take on non English as their work ethic is far better than the English "workers" who ring up if your lucky on a Sat or Sun morning to say they are to ill to work. Wonder why?
If i ran a business i'd take on foreign workers, you want the best in your workforce and fortunately there is a source of them from abroad. Nothing to do with the stupid comments about low wages or working long hours. They want to work and do work very hard. I still laugh at the thought of the program on last year about out of work people put in jobs as the complained about foreign workers coming over here taking all the jobs. How did that work out? 2 English who couldn't count to 12, 10 was their limit, and the lad who's been out of work for years went out partying and couldn't get to work! Says it all about the lazy complacent British worker, instead of blaming themselves for their lack of work ethic lets blame the foreigner who wants to work or even lets blame the bankers. Get a life, get a job.
By the way this is coming from someone who is likely to be out of work again soon and looking for work, but that is my problem nothing to do with the migration of Eastern European workers.

fedster

Interesting discussion,

I was born in the UK,I dropped out of university a few years ago and was struggling to find work,so I joined an agency and was given temp work at a warehouse I was there for around 1 year before I was made permnant.

My co workers during that period mostly consisted of Poles,who to their credit were hard workers,it would not be an exaggeration to say during that year I must have seen about 100 British born and bred guys laid of because of their behaviour and appaling attitude.

I bucked that trend through hard work,so it is possible,but it just goes to show the appalling condition of a large section of British society,when Poles who can't even speak English properly are being preffered to the British born and bred.

eric_wimp

what makes me laugh is the growers who won't hire British workers go on the news crying that their might go out of business because people aren't buying british produce. Why should i as a consumer buy expensive poor quality tasteless british produce when i can buy imported produce that is of much higher quality tastier and cheaper sometimes upto half the price,

dickydonkin

ilovemydebts wrote: »

Have to say these posts make me laugh. My girlfriend is Polish, highly qualified and works here doing 2 jobs. One is nights stacking shelves and the other cleaning at a hotel. At the night job she is given a time to complete the work and she does before the time is up whereas her fellow English "workers" prefer to wander around chatting. At her second job they prefer to take on non English as their work ethic is far better than the English "workers" who ring up if your lucky on a Sat or Sun morning to say they are to ill to work. Wonder why?
If i ran a business i'd take on foreign workers, you want the best in your workforce and fortunately there is a source of them from abroad. Nothing to do with the stupid comments about low wages or working long hours. They want to work and do work very hard. I still laugh at the thought of the program on last year about out of work people put in jobs as the complained about foreign workers coming over here taking all the jobs. How did that work out? 2 English who couldn't count to 12, 10 was their limit, and the lad who's been out of work for years went out partying and couldn't get to work! Says it all about the lazy complacent British worker, instead of blaming themselves for their lack of work ethic lets blame the foreigner who wants to work or even lets blame the bankers. Get a life, get a job.
By the way this is coming from someone who is likely to be out of work again soon and looking for work, but that is my problem nothing to do with the migration of Eastern European workers.

No generalisation there then!

Nothing to do with the stupid comments about low wages or working long hours.

We it is all to do with the above.

Here in the UK our fathers and their fathers before them fought for decent working conditions, sensible hours, a living wage and to be able to work in a safe environment.

Because of them, we have all of the above with one of the best industrial safety records in the world.

Despite the attempts of previous Tory governments to scupper, we fortunately still have good working conditions and a minimum wage but these incur additional costs and many unscrupulous employers use migrant workers to blatantly circumvent decent working conditions and pay lousy wages.

I can provide numerous cases where migrant workers have been exploited and have ended up dead or seriously injured.

UK workers expect to go to work on a morning and return home to their families on an evening and work sensible hours that allow a decent lifestyle - and that is how it should be.

It is not about migrant workers having a better work ethic - many have come here simply to do one thing and that is work their asses off during all the hours God sends and make as much money as possible.

Many live in hovels and have no life whatsoever.

I prefer to work for a living - not to live for working.

Maybe I have a poor work ethic as well.

ceridwen

...and theres elements of truth in a lot of the posts here.

Many employers do think migrant workers are easier to exploit than the British are AND there are many British workers who prefer to chat than work (I watch a group of them "at work" regularly....chatting/texting on their phones/etc).

So - what DOES one do to stop the exploitative employers on the one hand and those workers who do just chat/text on a regular basis and/or expect to get a job even though they are barely literate/numerate on the other hand.

:cool:

GothicStirling

dickydonkin wrote: »

I prefer to work for a living - not to live for working.

Maybe I have a poor work ethic as well.

This is twisting the meaning of work ethic. When I talk about work ethic, I am talking about the work put in over their contracted hours. I have never worked for an employer who has paid an immigrant below NMW, or broken Health and Safety Legislation.

Now I don't doubt there are those kind of employers out there. But they are operating outside of the law, and more than likely their employees are here illegally and the government don't even know they are here. That's how tragedies like Morecambe Bay occur.

Oldbiggles

Many other forums are also posting comments about this subject and the consensus seems to be that once again a policy has been put forward without proper consultation.
Unfortunately Mr Duncan Smith doesn’t seem to communicate with employers. Many of whom are saying that young English people coming to interview lack basic skills, like ‘reading and writing’ for instance.
Unless our education system is revolutionised this trend can only get worse.
One of the problems seem to be that children are not being allowed to put in a full day at school. Some schools are releasing children as early as 3pm. Why is this happening? With more and more parents being forced to work longer hours in order to meet their own financial commitments, children are coming home to an empty house and being left to their own resources.
By increasing the school day, possibly by recruiting more part time teaching staff, we just might get better educated children and with their parents able to work longer hours we might eventually get out of this financial mess the country is in.