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The Brexit Thread

GaryH said:
Coal mining? No, its a horrible environment and im not suggesting we reopen all the pits and start digging out the black gold again, but, there are still places that use it. For example, in Devon, the steam trains which run down here need to use Welsh coal. It burns far better than imported coal, so there is still a demand, allbeit a small one, but its an example anyway.

All I am trying to say is that the West (not just the UK) has got used to this cheap, throw it away culture, and if its one thing we did right in the past, it was to reuse and recycle. Glass bottles were taken back to shops for a refund, we repaired clothes, electricals etc, whereas now, its so cheap we just throw them into landfill.

What i'm saying is that if this means we pay a few quid more for a product which lasts, can be repaired, is made more locally and results in more people in jobs, more paying taxes, and less waste going in the bin, surely this a good thing for everyone?
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It's a bit too easy to suggest you're looking backwards rather than forwards when the example you choose is domestic fossil fuel to power steam trains on a heritage railway.

I'm well up for bottle return schemes and the like, way overdue.
 
Is the government creating another Windrush scandal?

Spanish woman in UK for 44 years sacked over post-Brexit rules

A Spanish woman who has lived in England for 44 years has been sacked from her job in a care home because she is unable to prove she has the right to work in the UK, in a case illustrating the difficulties experienced by EU nationals as employers grapple with post-Brexit right-to-work regulations.

The 45-year-old woman, who arrived in Britain as an 11-month-old baby and who has never left the country, said she has tried more than 100 times to get through to the Home Office-run helpline in the past three weeks, but has never been able to speak to an adviser.

She has applied for EU settled status, but her application is stuck somewhere in the backlog of over 500,000 cases the Home Office has yet to process. She is the main breadwinner, with two children to support, and said her dismissal has left her struggling to buy food.

Charities helping EU nationals say the case is not unique. “We’ve seen this time and again when people with pending EUSS applications were asked to take unpaid leave, or were turned down from employment,” Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of the Work Rights Centre, said.

[Continue reading]
 
Tom said:
The combined concept of jobs going unfilled, 'skills shortages' and people claiming unemployment benefit is alien to me.

It would be more accurate to say that people don't want to do the job for what is being paid, and crucially people on certain benefits are allowed to make that choice at all.
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They can’t choose to be unemployed, they have to apply for jobs and have to accept any jobs given. What generally happens is these people for various reasons don’t have an employment history so employers won’t employ them, as time goes on they look less and less appealing to recruiters and continue to be unemployed.

Now I’m certain some people make themselves an undesirable candidate at interview but the point is they can’t refuse to seek work and if you make yourself unemployed you can’t claim any benefits for the first 3 months of unemployment.
 
Brexit still going well.

New visas urged to tackle EU lorry driver shortage

The UK should grant 10,000 EU lorry drivers visas to solve a labour crisis that has led to shortages of goods on British supermarket shelves, a lobby group says.

Logistics UK, which represents freight firms, says Brexit and Covid-19 caused lorry drivers to leave the UK, but a temporary visa could lure them back.

It said a similar visa scheme granted 30,000 permits for agriculture workers. However, the government says employers must invest in the UK workforce.

...

Analysis of the latest ONS Labour Force Survey for the second quarter suggests that 14,000 EU lorry drivers left jobs in the UK in the year to June 2020, and only 600 had returned by July 2021.

Read more: BBC News
 
Think Krispy Kreme are offering something like £29k a year atm for HGV drivers.

Problem is that its not a particularly suitable job for many people. Long hours driving, very unsociable and often staying away from home.

If only someone could've predicted things like this would happen and lead to a national chain temporarily closing 40-50 locations due to supy issues.
 
Benzin said:
Think Krispy Kreme are offering something like £29k a year atm for HGV drivers.

Problem is that its not a particularly suitable job for many people. Long hours driving, very unsociable and often staying away from home.

If only someone could've predicted things like this would happen and lead to a national chain temporarily closing 40-50 locations due to supy issues.
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If you increased the pay to £40k or more I imagine you would not have difficulty filling the jobs.

"Skills shortages" are usually due to insufficient wages being paid or other lacking desirable conditions of employment. Unfortunately, the uncomfortable truth for many businesses and most Tories is that capitalism works both ways. The jobs need to be made more desirable to attract the labour market.
 
No wonder they want to bring foreign drivers back in, they'll do it cheaper than Brits and the haulage firms don't want to pay British people more if they can recruit from abroad and then the heads of these firms can show a bigger profit at the end of the year to justify their very large salaries.

Offer under 40s (or something like that) free training and a good wage for the sacrifices that the job demands and they'll get enough staff eventually. Lots of firms have loved the cheap ready trained labour from abroad and they hate the fact that the supply has been cut off.
 
Will people be prepared to pay more on their shopping to cover the increased driver salaries though? I think most people would, when it comes down to it, rather have the cheaper goods they're used to and have foreign workers drive the lorries.
 
Maybe businesses should reduce their profit margin to compensate. People will pay what they have to, and they not ben an increased price if competition in the industry drives down prices as it should.
 
BarryZola said:
No wonder they want to bring foreign drivers back in, they'll do it cheaper than Brits and the haulage firms don't want to pay British people more if they can recruit from abroad and then the heads of these firms can show a bigger profit at the end of the year to justify their very large salaries.

Offer under 40s (or something like that) free training and a good wage for the sacrifices that the job demands and they'll get enough staff eventually. Lots of firms have loved the cheap ready trained labour from abroad and they hate the fact that the supply has been cut off.
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The profits wont drop, the cost of things will increase to compensate.
 
Tom said:
Maybe businesses should reduce their profit margin to compensate. People will pay what they have to, and they not ben an increased price if competition in the industry drives down prices as it should.
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Hahahahaha.

Businesses reducing their profit margin so us peasants don't have to suffer increased costs.

Zero chance of that happening in the near future.
 
Brexiters (and the Conservative party) have fallen into the trap. You cannot just remove freedom of movement and say "we're only going to allow highly skilled into the country. Doctors, Engineers etc".

It doesn't work like that. An economy is reliant on a low skilled workforce such as lorry drivers, people washing dishes, people collecting fruit etc. If you stop the immigration, those jobs just remain uncompleted rather than being filled by the British people.
 
Alsty said:
Brexiters (and the Conservative party) have fallen into the trap. You cannot just remove freedom of movement and say "we're only going to allow highly skilled into the country. Doctors, Engineers etc".

It doesn't work like that. An economy is reliant on a low skilled workforce such as lorry drivers, people washing dishes, people collecting fruit etc. If you stop the immigration, those jobs just remain uncompleted rather than being filled by the British people.
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Countries have managed succesfully immigration on the basis of skill requirement for basically all of time. Those skills won't necessarily be doctors and engineers, just what the country 'needs', and that is surely what we are looking at, regardless of soundbites and hysterical reporting?

For years one of the best ways to get into Australia was as a hairdresser. No doubt it's a skill, but it's hardly essential and a doctorate not generally required! If we need drivers, undoubted a skill, then drivers will be permitted. Whether they want to come is one thing, whether current covid restrictions make it viable is another.
 
pluk said:
Countries have managed succesfully immigration on the basis of skill requirement for basically all of time. Those skills won't necessarily be doctors and engineers, just what the country 'needs', and that is surely what we are looking at, regardless of soundbites and hysterical reporting?
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Right, so when the country is short of around 60,000 10,000 lorry drivers the government could create a visa or relax the rules to bring in EU lorry drivers, but instead refuses and says "The British people repeatedly voted to end free movement and take back control of our immigration system and employers should invest in our domestic workforce instead of relying on labour from abroad." (see my original link)

It strikes me the government doesn't want to be seen to u-turn and "surrender" to those dreaded European folk out of principle.

Edit: corrected figure
 
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I think it’s great the government has turned the visa request down and told companies to invest in the local workforce. That’s exactly why I voted to leave, so we stop relying on cheap labour from the EU and start providing decent jobs and training in the U.K. If it means I pay £2-£3 more on my shopping then I’d be happy to pay that if it means a person can afford to get a home and have a decent standard of living.
 
GaryH said:
I think it’s great the government has turned the visa request down and told companies to invest in the local workforce. That’s exactly why I voted to leave, so we stop relying on cheap labour from the EU and start providing decent jobs and training in the U.K. If it means I pay £2-£3 more on my shopping then I’d be happy to pay that if it means a person can afford to get a home and have a decent standard of living.
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Would you abandon your NHS pension & conditions and drive a lorry for £29k?
 
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