Housing, immigration and salaries

macaque_2

This month's TCE (The Chemical Engineer) published some interesting salary statistics:

Average salary for a Chemical Engineer

• UK - $80,000
• USA - $110,000
• Australia - $131,000

Compare this to UK Public Sector jobs from the Guardian website(converted to $) http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/jobs/government/4/

• Parks and open space manager - $107,000
• Integrated community serives director -$130,000
• Director of Community Services Liverpool - $230,000

These stats raise several questions:

1. Why are Chemical Engineers so poorly paid by comparison to their US and Australian counterparts? I suspect the answer to this is linked to the severe depletion of UK manufacturing over the past 15 years.
2. Why does the UK have such a chronic skills shortage? Based on the above salary comparisons, the public sector would appear to be consistently out competing the private sector for the better recruits. The private sector simply cannot match these salaries if they are to stay competetive in global markets and their only option is to find recruits from emerging economies.

So far the Government have paid no more than lip service to public sector cutbacks. When they finally bite the bullet however, there will be long term benefits for the private sector and more balanced immigration. Better balanced immigration is the key to addressing housing problems.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

macaque wrote: »

[*]Why are Chemical Engineers so poorly paid by comparison to their Australian counterparts?
.

They're not.

Your comparison is only reflecting the currency movements of recent times.

But that's not likely to be a permanent shift......

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=167227&st=0

15 years ago the Aussie dollar was a banana-republic currency, 15 years from now it'll likely be again.

Likewise 5 years ago the UK pound was buying over 2 US$, so UK engineers looked remarkably well paid. A 20% shift in FX would see them look like that again.

International salary comparisons are flawed for that reason, short term shifts in FX make it pretty pointless to take a snapshot at a moment in time and try to claim people are over or under paid. Give it a few years and it'll all change again.

MFW_10YRS_4

macaque wrote: »

This month's TCE (The Chemical Engineer) published some interesting salary statistics:





Average salary for a Chemical Engineer

• UK - $80,000
• USA - $110,000
• Australia - $131,000

Compare this to UK Public Sector jobs from the Guardian website(converted to $) http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/jobs/government/4/

• Parks and open space manager - $107,000
• Integrated community serives director -$130,000
• Director of Community Services Liverpool - $230,000

These stats raise several questions:

1. Why are Chemical Engineers so poorly paid by comparison to their US and Australian counterparts? I suspect the answer to this is linked to the severe depletion of UK manufacturing over the past 15 years.
2. Why does the UK have such a chronic skills shortage? Based on the above salary comparisons, the public sector would appear to be consistently out competing the private sector for the better recruits. The private sector simply cannot match these salaries if they are to stay competetive in global markets and their only option is to find recruits from emerging economies.

So far the Government have paid no more than lip service to public sector cutbacks. When they finally bite the bullet however, there will be long term benefits for the private sector and more balanced immigration. Better balanced immigration is the key to addressing housing problems.

That's a disappointment. I thought you were going to show equivalent public sector salaries across the UK, US and AUS for a specific role just like you showed equivalent private sector salaries for Checmical engineers in these same countries.

I was all set to start throthing, but I have had to put it on hold until someone tells me if we are paying more than the US and AUS for our public sector.

An opportunity lost.

Vagildi

The general public would like to see far fewer immigrants in this country. But are they willing to see house prices go down as a consequence. It could be a price worth paying.

DervProf

Vagildi wrote: »

The general public would like to see far fewer immigrants in this country. But are they willing to see house prices go down as a consequence. It could be a price worth paying.

That's a very good question.

I would like to see fewer immigrants coming into the country because I think that it would ease some of the strain on our infrastructure. If housing, schools, hospitals etc were being built to cover the increase in population, then I wouldn't have any objection to immigration, so long as there is some sort of control over criminals and "benefit tourists" paying us a visit. The way things are going, it'll be "maintian/increase house prices" at the expense of everything else.....

Get more immigrants in - we want higher house prices.

Get the banks lender ever larger amounts - we want higher house prices.

Don't build enough new homes - we want higher house prices.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Vagildi wrote: »

The general public would like to see far fewer immigrants in this country.

That's because the general public are, generally speaking, thicker than two thick planks nailed through the head of a very thick person.

But are they willing to see house prices go down as a consequence. It could be a price worth paying.

House prices would be the least of their problems.

Just wait for the reductions in pensions, infrastructure spending, care and public services.

It's difficult enough for society to pay for and care for an aging population today when there are 3-4 workers for every pensioner.

It would be utterly impossible with 3 pensioners for every worker.....

Without immigration that's the inevitable consequence.

StevieJ

Vagildi wrote: »

The general public would like to see far fewer immigrants in this country. But are they willing to see house prices go down as a consequence. It could be a price worth paying.

Remember what you wrote

Any constant posting of propaganda from the same person, regardless of political beliefs, is wrong.

DervProf

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

That's because the general public are, generally speaking, thicker than two thick planks nailed through the head of a very thick person.



House prices would be the least of their problems.

Just wait for the reductions in pensions, infrastructure spending, care and public services.

It's difficult enough for society to pay for and care for an aging population today when there are 3-4 workers for every pensioner.

It would be utterly impossible with 3 pensioners for every worker.....

Without immigration that's the inevitable consequence.

So, we get more immigrants in to do what exactly ? We haven't got 100% employment, so how is getting more people into the country going to help ?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

DervProf wrote: »

So, we get more immigrants in to do what exactly ? We haven't got 100% employment, so how is getting more people into the country going to help ?

You seem to think we live in a static system?

Where there are only a fixed number of jobs, no matter what the population size?

Has it occurred to you that a population of 100 million people need roughly twice as many doctors, dentists, plumbers, welders, taxi drivers, solicitors, care home workers, etc as a population of 50 million people?

As it turns out, the number of unemployed people has stayed remarkably constant in Britain over the last couple of decades despite high immigration. (although it obviously fluctuates with the economic cycle)

And that's before we get into the issue of whether or not 100% employment is possible (it isn't) or even desirable (it isn't).

misskool

Hi all,
Can we please keep to a proper debate? https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1712803

No name-calling etc please. I will leave this thread open for now

Generali

MFW_10YRS wrote: »

That's a disappointment. I thought you were going to show equivalent public sector salaries across the UK, US and AUS for a specific role just like you showed equivalent private sector salaries for Checmical engineers in these same countries.

I was all set to start throthing, but I have had to put it on hold until someone tells me if we are paying more than the US and AUS for our public sector.

An opportunity lost.

Parks manager (plus other stuff on top) in Aus is AU$80,000 (link)