Finding work abroad whilst on a tourist visa/Heathrow airport staff

Hello everyone. I have stumbled a little argument on TOC's Facebook page on the report of Filipinos coming to Singapore to find work on tourist visas - now, one of their readers compared the situation in Singapore to that of the UK and the argument went a little something like this:

• Sam Gunner It's no big deal, lah.
  In fact this is how you get a job in any country in the world.
  A Singaporean can go to England as a tourist, you will get a 6 months visa, you spend a few months looking for any job you can get and once you get the job, exit to France for a few days and then come back to start work.

  Like · Reply · 2 · 11 hours ago
• 

  Daniel Lim That's where you're wrong. Besides, S'pore workers in UK don't suppress or pull down the wages of the industry they're employed in. They get paid the same as their UK counterparts.

  Like · 7 · 10 hours ago via mobile
• 

  Irene Chong I don't know about UK, but in France if you are on a 6 months visa or even a 1 year visa, what they call a temporary long stay tourist visa, you are NOT allowed to seek employment. That is why when you apply for the visa, they want to see your bank account to make sure you can support yourself. Are our immigration laws strict like this?

  Like · 2 · 9 hours ago
• 

  Sam Gunner You are not allowed to work on your tourist visa, same as Singapore, but you are able to look for work, once you have an employer who is able to get you a work permit, you have to exit the country and come back. 
  It's the same everywhere.
  Foreigners DON'T get paid the same as British Citizens. 
  If we Singaporeans go there to work, we WILL be depressing the wages in that country.
  Only difference is they have a minimum wage.
  What we are experiencing now with all the huge influx of foreigners has been going on in Europe for decades.
  When I was in Heathrow airport for the first time, I thought I was still in asia, almost 80% of the airport staff were Non English.
  One day if you get an opportunity to work in Europe you will have to do the same thing.

  Like · 8 hours ago
• 

  Daniel Lim Oh believe me, I know that. I am talking about Singaporeans, not other nationalities. S'poreans definitely don't pull down wages in the UK. You weren't the one and only person who has worked there.
  
  Your comprehension is pretty poor btw. Irene Chong is saying on a tourist visa in France, one is not allowed to SEEK employment. And there you go saying it's the same in SG when these tourists are obviously allowed to do so.

Well, let's go through this short exchange. Sam Gunner isn't exactly accurate (he has oversimplified the situation), Daniel is more or less correct but he doesn't point out exactly where Sam is wrong (what a shame - such is the shallowness of the debate on Facebook). Irene is correct, but there are ways around the situation and Irene has not discussed those French loopholes (which are pretty darn big). When Sam wades into the argument again, he makes the mistake of oversimplifying the situation (it is actually very hard to get a work permit in the UK even if you do have an offer of employment) so he is misrepresenting the situation. Besides, foreigners are paid the same as British citizens - that's where he is totally wrong. Crikey, we are in the EU and we have so many EU citizens from places like France, Italy, Germany, Greece etc working here and it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of nationality. Groan, he is wrong on so many levels - where do I begin! As for Daniel (take two), again he's basically correct but again, he is not going into any details as to why Sam is wrong (what a shame - but such is Facebook for you).

Now, I refuse to get dragged into debates on Facebook like that because there's no point in trying to convince someone like Sam Gunner that he is wrong (it is a hollow victory anyway) and what is the point of saying, "you're wrong, I'm right" - what would I gain by enlightening someone like that? Do I want to take on every single person who spouts some incorrect information on social media? But for what it's worth, allow me to clear up some of the misconceptions here on the issue of coming to the UK to look for a job whilst on a tourist visa, okay?

What kind of interactions do you have on Facebook?

So, can you arrive in the UK on a tourist visa and find work here? Technically speaking, yes it is possible but it is so highly unlikely that it rarely ever happens in real life. Singaporeans have a visa-waiver with the UK, so you can hop on a flight from Changi Airport, land in Heathrow Airport 13 hours later and be automatically given a 6 month tourist visa. Now it is a rather generous visa given that I doubt there's enough for you to do and see in the UK as a tourist for 6 long months, but there you go. There's nothing to stop you from trying to apply for jobs in the meantime whilst you are a tourist, but let's explore what will happen when a Singaporean tourist tries to find work in the UK.

There are strict laws in the UK when it comes to ensuring that those who work here have the right to do so: so the first question a prospective employer will ask you is, "do you have the right to work in the UK?" The Singaporean tourist will have to answer, "no I don't, I am here on a tourist visa and am hoping you will get me a work permit to enable me to work in the UK." In the vast majority of cases, that is when the employer will say, "I'm sorry I cannot help you. I cannot get you a work permit for this job." Certainly, if you came to my company looking for a job, we would almost certainly reject you as a Singaporean because of the complex and expensive process of having to get you a work permit - it is just so much easier to hire an EU national who does not need a work permit.

What is the right way to look for a job abroad?

This is where Sam Gunner is completely wrong because he thinks it is so easy to get a work permit for the UK when really, it is a lot harder than you think, I have blogged about it recently when I compared the Singaporean system with the British system. If you are interested in the complicated, expensive and difficult process that British employers have to go through in order to secure a work permit for a non-EU foreigner, then please click on this link and read that piece.  In essence, work permits are only available for highly skilled migrants as well as those on the Tier 2 shortage occupation list; for example, we don't have enough nurses in the UK, so most qualified nurses ought tol find it fairly easy to get a work permit here in the UK.

Yeah, so technically speaking if you a qualified nurse from Singapore and you are in the UK on holiday, you can apply for work whilst in the UK on a tourist visa and you could potentially secure employment whilst in the UK - but that is entirely dependent on you firstly having a skill set that is on the shortage occupation list and secondly actually finding an employer who is willing to sponsor your work permit. Is it that simple? No it isn't. Far from it - let me explain.

How hard is it for foreigners to find a job in the UK?

So even if you are a Singaporean nurse, you still need to find a hospital with vacancies they cannot fill with local nurses. After all, if there is one vacancy at the hospital for a nurse and they receive two applications: one from a local British nurse and one from a Singaporean nurse and both nurses are equally qualified and experienced, think about this. The British nurse can just start work immediately with no need for any additional paperwork relating to a work permit - for the Singaporean nurse, she would have to go through a lengthy and expensive work permit application process. Just because she is eligible for a work permit, doesn't make it any cheaper or easier and these are all additional costs and processes that have to be undertaken by the employer. It is only when a hospital is suffering from an acute shortage of nurses that they would resort to employing foreign nurses because this process is complex and expensive. If possible, the employer will always choose a candidate who already has the right to work in the UK. Please note this has nothing to do with discriminating against foreigners in the UK, but entirely to do with employers wishing to avoid unnecessary and expensive paperwork that comes with a work permit application.

As for Sam Gunner's theory that foreigners are paid less than locals in the UK, that's utter complete bullshit. He's talking rubbish. If you are a highly skilled professional who can qualify for a work permit in the UK, then you're here because you're a highly skilled foreign talent  - you're not here because you're cheap. Foreigners in the UK cannot be treated like a monolithic entity - sure you may have Polish or Lithuanian farm workers harvesting potatoes or strawberries in rural England because there are no locals who are willing to do that kind of backbreaking hard work on the farms, but what about the highly skilled doctors, engineers, lawyers and bankers? The highly skilled, highly educated professionals will be paid what they are worth on the basis of merit - not on the basis of their nationality.

What kind of foreigners are you talking about in the UK? Bankers or farm workers?

There is I suppose, two tiers of foreigner workers in the UK (heck, this situation isn't that different from Singapore). You have rich, highly educated, highly skilled foreigners and poor lowly educated, unskilled foreigners. The rich foreigners come from all over the world and are genuinely 'foreign talent' - they are often paid a lot more than the locals because they are so much more highly skilled and educated than the locals. Then you have the poor foreigners - now they come from Eastern Europe because we have freedom of movement within the EU and there are many Eastern European countries in the EU like Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Buglaria and Romania which are a lot poorer than the UK. Hence there are always Eastern Europeans working here in the UK and they have always been a source of cheap unskilled labour here in the UK.

Likewise in Singapore, you have Swiss and British bankers earning a lot of money in the banking industry and you have Indian and Bangladeshi construction workers earning as little as S$2.25 an hour. There are clearly two classes of foreign workers in Singapore - so if I were to ask you, "do foreigners in Singapore get paid more or less than your average Singaporean?" The answer would be, "which kinds of foreigners are you talking about? The white foreigners who work in professional roles are paid so much more than your average Singaporean whilst the Indian construction workers, unskilled PRC labourers and your Filipino maids are paid a lot less than your average Singaporean. How can you treat these two distinct groups as a monolithic entity when they couldn't be more different? Duh."

The lives of the Indian construction workers cannot be compared to the white expats in Singapore.

Hence Sam Gunner's theory about Singaporeans suppressing the wages of British people is complete rubbish because the UK doesn't have a open door policy when it comes to foreign workers. This is because the UK only opens her doors to certain skilled migrants - not just anyone and everyone. There isn't a huge influx of foreigners coming to Europe anyway - it is not easy to migrate to EU countries. What there is, however, is a movement of labour within the EU from poorer EU states (Poland, Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria etc) to richer EU states (Sweden, UK, Germany, France etc).

As for Sam Gunner's experience at Heathrow airport (ie. many Asian people working for the UK Border Agency, checking passports), that can be easily explained. When you get flights coming in from places like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and China, often the passengers do not speak any English. They are not even able to understand simple questions like, "what is the purpose of your visit to the UK? How long will you be staying in the UK?" It is not a requirement to speak English to visit the UK as a tourist - so in order to process these Asian visitors more efficiently and quickly at Heathrow airport, the UKBA hires many members of staff who speak languages like Hindi, Gujarati, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil, Cantonese and Mandarin so they can easily deal with a situation whereby a tourist doesn't speak a word of English. They can then calmly say, "I have an old lady at counter 23 who speaks only Punjabi and no English at all, can someone get Mr Singh here right away so that we can process her please."

Many Indian and Chinese tourists don't speak any English!

It is extremely rare for white, English people to speak these Indian or Chinese languages, white people here are far more likely to learn languages like French, Spanish, Italian and German at British schools. Given that there is an Indian and Chinese minority in the UK anyway, the UKBA has made a real effort to recruit members of staff with the right Indian and Chinese language skills from these minorities to work at Heathrow airport. Can you imagine if a flight from New Delhi or Beijing lands in Heathrow on a day when none of the staff checking the passports speak a word of Hindi or Mandarin? And besides, all of these British-Indian and British-Chinese staff working at Heathrow airport speak English anyway, so they can easily deal with other international travelers who do speak English.

So it is not a question of these Asian immigrants taking over Britain, quite the contrary, it is simply deploying staff with the right language skills at a major international airport! All you have to do is take a look at the statistics - the percentage of South Asians (from the Indian sub-continent) in the UK has been stagnant at about 7% for a few decades now and the percentage of Chinese people has climbed very slightly from 0.3% to 0.4%. The last time we had a big influx of Asian migrants was when Idi Amin expelled Ugandan-Asians from Uganda in 1972 and approximately 27,200 refugees of South Asian origin came to the UK after being expelled from Uganda - that was over 40 years ago.

You know the signs at Heathrow are in English and no other languages?

As for Irene's case, whilst you're not allowed to work whilst in France, there's nothing to stop you from looking for an employer who would be willing to give you a job and sponsor your work visa in France. The situation isn't really that different from in the UK, it really depends on you having a skill set that is valued in France and worthy of a French work permit; and really, that is far easier said than done given what the French system is like.

OK that's it from me on this issue - this is why I really hate social media sometimes, it is the way people who know nothing (or have the wrong information) shout very loudly and insist that they are right when really, they are at best embarrassing themselves, at worst they are misleading others who are looking for information on the issue. If you have any other questions on the issue, please feel free to leave a comment below. Thanks for reading.