Well the key reason why many poorer, working class people voted for Brexit in the first place was immigration - as a member of the EU, migrant workers from other Eastern European countries enjoyed freedom of movement so those from poorer countries like Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Bulgaria had the right to come to the UK and start working immediately, without having to apply for a work permit at all. Since average wages in the UK are a lot higher than in these poorer Eastern European countries, we have seen a lot of Eastern European migrant workers come to the UK to take advantage of the higher wages. Whilst the cost of living is a lot higher in the UK, the mindset for a lot of these migrant workers was simply to come and work hard for a few years, make very frugal decisions about how they spent their money, save a lot of their earnings and then return to their home countries after some time and use that pot of savings to either buy a house, start a business or even retire. The thing is that a lot of these Eastern European countries do have strong and robust economies but working in the UK for a few years was simply a quick and easy way to amass a pot of money. This plentiful supply of cheap labour suppressed wages for those at the bottom end of the food chain, doing the lowest paid jobs in the country. So for the less educated and unskilled people in the UK trying to compete with these migrant workers for these jobs, they overwhelmingly voted for Brexit in order to reduce the amount of competition they face in the labour market, especially since it is perceived that such Eastern European migrant workers are willing to accept worse working conditions and lower pay: ending freedom of labour from Eastern Europe was a key aim of Brexit.
What is the UK government's intention?
It wants to make a grand gesture to demonstrate to the voters who wanted Brexit that they are indeed removing this threat of low-skilled migrant workers from Eastern Europe, hence without the availability of abundant migrant workers willing to accept low-pay and harsh working conditions, employers would be forced to train and invest in local British workers to do those jobs instead. This government won an election on a platform of getting Brexit done and they are simply following through with the promises they made during their election campaign, so really none of this is surprising at all. The government claim that there are currently 8.5 million people economically inactive British people of working age in the UK who can fill those jobs - but that has been criticized for being wildly inaccurate. Amongst the 8.5 million are full time students, the retired and those who are too sick to work, as well as those who are full time carers for their family members, so the real figure is actually much closer to 2 million. So amongst these 2 million 'economically inactive' British people, you have to ask yourself why they are not in work. The answer is simple: we have a generous welfare state whereby unemployed people are entitled to a whole range of benefits and if these people get married and have children, then they are entitled to even more benefits. So it is the welfare state that has created an underclass of people who can't work, won't work and are not interested in working and unless you're willing to force them into working by withdrawing all their welfare benefits, then these people aren't going to ever get a job. Hence the government's plans are deeply flawed.
I don't think so - the problem with this country is that people are very resistant to change. The welfare state is a double edged sword; on one hand, it is a compassionate Robin Hood programme to ensure that the poorest in our society do not starve to death, but on the other hand, it has created an underclass of British people who will never ever work - their children and grandchildren will never ever work either and they are permanently reliant on welfare benefits generation after generation. But even if the government was willing to cut off their welfare benefits and use starvation as a means to force these people to get back into the workforce, that's hardly going to solve the problem. Take the social care sector in the UK for example - we have an ageing population in the UK and thus we require a lot of care workers to take care of these elderly folks who cannot perform a lot of simple tasks without help. Thus we have migrant workers who don't mind doing social care jobs like bathing old British people in care homes - it's not a glamorous job and it is very lowly paid work, yet even if you kick out the Eastern Europeans who are currently doing these jobs and try to replace them with local British people who are currently unemployed, would you trust them to take over these jobs? In fact, the British underclass who are long term unemployed are pretty much unemployable - it is a massive challenge to try to find any kind of work that they can perform when their mindset is, "why should I have to wake up so early every morning to go to work when I can simply stay at home and collect unemployment benefits?" But then again, relying on Eastern Europeans to do these jobs is hardly a perfect long term solution - Brexit voters blame the EU for this situation, well I blame the overly generous welfare state. Even if you kick out all the Eastern Europeans, you're still left with a messy problem created by the welfare state - hence the Eastern Europeans migrants have been merely the scapegoats for this problem.
Why the emphasis on the PhD then?
Well let's look at the system in more detail - I think it is somewhat simplistic and really needs to be refined. The one major flaw I saw in it was under the category of education: you can get 20 points if you have a PhD in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) relevant to the job or 10 points if your PhD is not in a STEM discipline (but still relevant to the job). Really? So it is PhD or nothing? What about a top scholar who went to Oxford and has a masters degree, but decides to focus on his career instead of pursuing a PhD? Such a person is undoubtedly brilliant but under this scheme would score a big fat zero under that category. And by the same token, you can go get a PhD from a university that is languishing at the very bottom of the league table in the UK - it wouldn't be worth the paper it was printed on but under this system, it doesn't take into account whether or not the PhD is from a reputable, prestigious university like Oxford and Cambridge or if it from an utterly crap university at the very bottom of the league table. Instead, we need a system which will allocate different points based on the level of academic achievement (basic degree, masters, post-grad, other industry specific specialist training etc) and of course, we need to make sure we recognize that not all graduates are equal - that more points are allocated to those who have a degree from a top tier of universities. A rule of thumb would be the top 10% in each country: so in the UK, there are 130 universities, we need to come give bonus points to those who have degrees from the top 13 universities the relevant discipline and award no points at all if the university is in the bottom half of the league table. So someone with a bachelor's from Oxford should score a lot more than someone with a PhD from the University of East London. Hence the current system really makes little sense at all.
I hate to be blunt but I earn a lot more money than they do. Here's the thing: given the number of years it takes to complete a PhD, my friends have been studying instead of working and thus they are not earning much money. Conventionally, one would assume that becoming more educated and qualified would increase the amount of money you would earn: that's why a graduate usually would earn more money than someone who has just secondary school education. But beyond a certain point, that is no longer true and loads of people choose to stop their formal education after their first degree because they then start focusing on their careers - at which point, any further education doesn't help them much and it actually hinders their career progression because studying for a post-grad qualification actually takes precious time away from their lucrative work. I have friends who do not have a PhD yet they have started very successful and lucrative businesses, providing employment for a lot of people. Nonetheless, this proposed system only awards points for having a PhD and ignores other talents such as the ability to start and run a business successfully, generate loads of profit whilst creating jobs for many people. There is this implicit assumption that somehow having a PhD proves that you'll be a great talent but really, there are so many ways a person can prove that they will be the right kind of migrant who will make a positive contribution to society. Furthermore, just because someone is academically brilliant enough to get a PhD doesn't mean they are actually able to function in the business world outside the confines of a university. It is so ludicrous to separate candidates into just two categories: PhD and non-PhD, because you're placing all geniuses from Oxford and Cambridge and multi-billionaire business tycoons in the same category as illiterate people.
What about vital work experience?
Another gaping hole in the system is that no points are allocated for any kind of work experience, good grief. That's such an important factor when you apply for any kind of job, to demonstrate that you have been able to hold down a job to the satisfaction of your employer. It is then assuming that if you're able to get a job offer from an approved sponsor (which will earn you 20 points), then they're unlikely to hire someone fresh out of university with no experience whatsoever. The government is thus counting on the employer to ascertain the quality and relevance of the candidate's work experience, rather than actually scrutinizing it themselves - I think that's a mistake as it is such an important factor, you definitely ought to reward those who have more work experience because right now, the system favours younger people who are highly qualified but have little or no work experience. The average student takes over 8 years to complete a PhD and in that time, they're either full time students or only working part time whilst working on that PhD, so that means that even if someone does have a PhD (which is highly rewarded under this current system), they are definitely lacking in relevant work experience compared to someone who chose to work full time after they have completed their basic degree. There are many reasons why people like me choose not to do a PhD: it takes too long, it costs too much money, we can achieve a lot more in the working world rather than trying to get that PhD and mostly because we have no intention of going into academia. If you do a simple cost benefit analysis of getting a PhD, in most cases, common sense would dictate that it would be a very bad decision to get that PhD unless you really want to become a professor at a university.
The rules regarding the points allocated to the salary level are so easily manipulated as well: the minimum salary is £20,480 and if your job pays between £20,480 to £23,039 you get no points, between £23,040 to £25,599 you get 10 points and over £25,600 you get 20 points. I've once come across a case whereby a man needed a work permit but his salary was too low to meet the requirement, so the employer gave the man a raise to meet the requirement on the understanding that it was purely to deceive the government. The man in question would then withdraw part of the salary from the bank in due course and return it to his employer (all in cash); the employer ends up paying the man the original amount agreed, the man gets his work permit legally and the government is none the wiser. What would make far more sense is to set a range between £23,000 and say £44,000 (just to work with round numbers), so an applicant earning between £23,000 and £24,000 scores nothing in this category but for every thousand point he earns above £24,000 he earns one point. So take an applicant who earns £28,400 a year, that's £4,400 above £24,000 and that earns him 4 points; an applicant who earns £39,250 a year earns £15,250 more than £24,000 and that would then earn him 15 points. If an applicant earns £60,000 a year, that's way above the maximum of £44,000 in this scale and that would earn him the full 20 points. I would also add a bonus of 10 points for those mega-high earners who manage to earn over £100,000 a year and 20 points for those who earn over £200,000 a year because a lot of very successful people who work in finance won't have a PhD or have a job in a shortage occupation, but they are nonetheless highly skilled and rich. The financial services industry is so important to the UK and this proposed system isn't created for the banking industry.
The sector that will be hit the hardest will be social care - there will be massive staff shortages in the short run and that will lead to a bidding war for the available labour. This will lead to an increase in the pay for those in the social care sector which isn't necessarily a bad thing: having seen my mother-in-law struggle in her final year as her health went into decline before her death last year, I realize just how vital social care workers are and they made life a lot easier for my family in those final months. They get paid peanuts despite the fact that they are performing a difficult job and are a lifeline to families who have an elderly family member to care for. Care homes and agencies will have to pay these social care workers more and they will in turn pass a lot of the costs to the families - the government may be able to subsidize some of it but these families will bear the brunt of the rise in cost of social care. The farming sector will also be hit quite hard as they are reliant on cheap labour from Eastern Europe to do a lot of the manual labour: take the harvesting of strawberries of example. The soft fruit is so delicate that this is a job that must be done carefully by hand and machines simply cannot perform this task. Machines have been developed to harvest more robust fruits like lemons and oranges, but with strawberries, the fruits ripen at different rates so you're still reliant on a human to look at the plant and decide which strawberries are ready to be picked and which ones need to be left on the plant for a few more days. Strawberries do not continue to ripen after they are picked and must only be harvested when red and ripe, otherwise they won't taste sweet. We're less likely to see British strawberries in our supermarkets in the future and we'll have to buy imported ones.
Then of course, there's everything else from restaurants to cafes to supermarkets which rely on cheap labour. Let's take Pret-A-Manger, a popular cafe chain in the UK (also present in nine countries) - it's where I can get a reasonably priced cup of coffee and sandwich or snack when I need a lunch or breakfast. 65% of their staff in the UK are from the EU for a simple reason: it is not well-paid work. A typical job there pays about £8.50 an hour depending on the location, though if you are a barrista entrusted to make coffee, hurrah then your pay rises to about £9 an hour. It is very hard work for not much money - you're on your feet non-stop throughout your shift, serving customers, preparing food and drinks, cleaning the cafe and oh did I mention that you still have to pay income tax on those modest earnings? Judging by the way your typical young person in the UK is constantly glued on their mobile phones, they probably want an easy job where they get to sit at a desk all day surfing the net, shopping online, looking at social media. They are not prepared to work in a place like Pret-A-Manger, certainly not when their wages are so low. A major reason why the food and drink at Pret-A-Manger is so affordable is because they don't pay their staff much - but if we cut off the supply of cheap labour to Pret-A-Manger and they are forced to hire British staff who expect higher pay for shorter hours, then the cost of a meal there is going to increase a lot as that additional cost will be passed onto the customer. Either that, or they may try to cut corners by reducing the quality of their food to save some money if they have to pay staff more and if they are unable to make a profit because of these higher labour costs, they will quite simply go out of business. That's just one example: imagine if all of the companies like Pret-A-Manger all go out of business - that would be a massive impact on the British economy.
Firstly, strangely enough, the key thing is that age is not a factor in the UK system, in Australia and Canada, you get points according to your age. Younger migrants get more points whilst they clearly don't want older migrants - the reason is that the younger migrants will have more productive years of their working lives left to contribute to their societies whilst someone in their 50s would already be thinking about retirement in the next ten years or so. I am somewhat surprised that age is not a component in the new UK system, especially given our ageing population. Likewise, in the Canadian system, they have different amounts of points allocated depending on your ability to speak English - that's a far more comprehensive system whereas the UK system is so painfully blunt: either you speak English well enough (in which case you get 10 points) or you don't (then you get nothing). The Canadian system actually has a very comprehensive system to test the standard of your English to then finally give you a final score which is a true reflection of your ability - now that makes far more sense than the very blunt UK system. Furthermore, the Canadian system also has a far more comprehensive way to grade your academic qualification. Both the Canadian and the Australian system also gives points for work experience and spousal/family relations. It is clear that both the Australian and the Canadian systems are a lot more thorough than the British system and I certainly do hope that what the government has released to the media is merely work in progress. Actually, there's nothing to stop them from copying exactly what the Australians and the Canadians have done. Heck, they can simply plagiarize the Canadian system, just cut and paste the whole thing.
Would I get enough points on the UK system?
Okay, this is a hypothetical question as I am already a UK citizen, but the short answer is no! Oh goodness, despite the fact that I earn a lot of money, I scored only 50 points in the system and you need to accumulate 70 points in order to get a visa. My main employer (I am self-employed but work mostly for one company) is a rather small company, so they're not an approved sponsor. My job is at an appropriate skill level (+20 points) and I speak English well enough (+10). I earn more than £25,600 a year (+20) but then I fail in all the other categories: I work in finance and that's not on the list of "shortage occupations" and I don't have a PhD. So despite the fact that I am raking in a lot of money working in banking, I would not get a visa to work in the UK if I were to apply under this system. However, I looked at the Canadian system and worked out that I score 76 points under their system (the pass mark is 67) and under the Australian system, I did about the same (different criteria, different tests, but more or less the same result) scoring 75 points when the pass mark there is just 60. It is puzzling to say the least: so I will be welcomed as a skilled migrant in Australia and Canada, two countries where I had only visited before as a tourist. But in the country where I call home and have built a very successful career, I fall short by an extremely long way. This is mostly because I have scored strongly in the academic qualifications and work experience categories; furthermore, in the Canadian system, I got bonus points for being totally fluent in French. None of these were part of the UK system, hence I scored so miserably. And if I can't even muster enough points on the UK system, I wonder how many people can actually meet those requirements and score 70 points?
Well it is very obvious - it will fail in its primary objective to attract the very best talents to the UK, this system clearly won't work because it sets the bar so high with the PhD that many very talented migrants will simply fail to accumulate the 70 points. The only way someone like me would be able to make up the shortfall of that last 20 points is to get a job with a big company that would be an 'approved sponsor' - but that makes no sense; why discriminate against people who choose to work for either smaller companies or prefer to be self-employed? There is no rational explanation behind this rule and certainly within the Australian and the Canadian system, points are gained based on the ability and talents of the applicant, not the size of the employer's company or whether or not they are on a list of 'approved sponsors'. Like I said, I already have my British passport so this is a moot point - but hypothetically speaking, if I was only just starting this whole process today, then my logical conclusion would be to head for Canada instead of the UK as the Canadian system clearly demonstrates that I will be far more valued and appreciated in Canada than in the UK. No, this system simply wouldn't work. Hence unless radical changes are made to this system, we will see a lot of the most talented migrants choose Canada over the UK. Note that I specifically chose Canada over Australia - hell no, I couldn't live in Australia. Not with Sco-Mo in charge, it is not a country I particularly liked when I visited there. Canada on the other hand is a lot more attractive to me - I adore really the cold winters and I abhor hot weather, hence Canada's climate would suit me just fine.
What other changes would I make to the system?
I would like to reward those migrants who are willing to live in less desirable regions of the country. So in the case of Australia, many migrants like to live in the big cities like Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney whilst few (if any) want to live out in the desert or the remote northern regions. Likewise in Canada, most migrants will settle in the big cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver whilst hardly any would venture to the colder regions in the far north where the winters can be very harsh. The UK may be a much smaller country but we do see the same pattern emerging: migrants want to settle in big cities like London, Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester instead of the remote, rural areas. The fact is there are huge pressures on everything from housing to schools to hospital in these crowded cities but this is certainly not the case in the more remote rural countryside areas. An injection of hardworking, migrant workers to these rural areas could rejuvenate their economy - but then again, this begs the question: what kind of work is there for someone with a PhD in very rural area? There's hardly any work there in the first place. Thus there needs to be a new category of visa for people willing to live in these small villages in the countryside, where they are committed to creating jobs to boost the local economy. So there should be a special category of visas handed out to migrants who are committed to starting a small business in a rural area, thus creating jobs for the local economy. Some parts of the UK are crowded and congested, whilst others are surprisingly empty - it would make a lot of sense to use the immigration system to try to repopulate some of these emptier regions and fill them with hardworking, migrant workers and therefore I would lower the requirements for people who are willing to live and work in such rural areas. It would be a win-win situation for everyone.
Well, yes actually. The most obvious method is really simple: marry a British national - but do make sure your spouse is rich enough to meet the requirements to bring you over as a spouse to settle in the UK. Your British spouse must earn at least £18,6000 a year to qualify - that's actually not a lot of money and even someone working full time at Pret-A-Manger can probably meet that figure. This is because in the first two years of your time in the UK as a spouse, you won't be entitled to any kind of public funds (though you have the right to work), so the government wants to make sure that in a worst case scenario, should you choose not to work or if you can't find any work at all, then your spouse can at least support you and the government won't find you destitute, homeless and starving. However, you don't necessarily need to marry a British national - simply marry someone who meets all the requirements. So imagine you marry an American man, this American man then comes to work in the UK as he meets the requirements to get a work visa - by law, he is allowed to bring his spouse and children with him to the UK when he is working here. In that case, you don't even need to speak English or meet any requirements as long as you're coming as a spouse. Don't forget the UK recognizes gay marriages as well for immigration purposes. Furthermore, you can also get a job on the 'shortage occupation list' - the UK government is desperate to attract people to work in these areas, so the requirements for these jobs are a lot lower. Then finally, you can apply to come to the UK as a refugee if you are fleeing a war zone - but unless you're genuinely from somewhere like Yemen, Iraq, Syria or South Sudan, forget it. I'm just mentioning this to complete the list.
So what is going to happen in the next 12 to 24 months then when it comes to immigration?
Once the transition period ends, this flawed system would be introduced and whilst it will successful bring down and restrict immigration, there will also be big gaps in the labour market that will be extremely disruptive. The government will then realize how flawed their system is and be rushing to make changes in order to get the right kind of people the visas needed to fill gaps in our labour market - particularly within the most vital sectors like health and social care. There will be a certain amount of trial and error going forwards: restrict immigration too much and you will have such acute shortages in the labour market in the UK that everyone will suffer. But if you're too lenient, then too many migrants will come and the voters will turn against the government. The key thing is to strike that balance right and attract the right kind of migrants - the best, the brightest and those who can contribute the most. Ironically the government does know what it wants to achieve but I just don't see them getting the job done with this current system - it simply won't deliver the desired result. Maybe the politicians like Priti Patel and Boris Johnson are idiots but the civil servants will work hard behind the scenes to fix it in the meantime. The government have plenty of time before the next election so they know they can afford to make quite a lot of mistakes in the meantime and they have up to 5 years to get things right eventually. Furthermore, the government is only announcing policy that will be put in place only after the transition period ends, so they have some time to iron out the finer detail. But nonetheless, I still think it is a shoddy piece of policy that they had put together that they inadvertently have to come up with a much better version of it or risk chaos to the British economy.
I had a look at the Australian points system, and compared it with this system. I think it's fairly obvious why Boris' new plan isn't going to do Britain any good; it's just too narrow, too restrictive.
ReplyDeleteWell yeah, he's putting the people who have masters degrees from Oxford & Cambridge and have started very successful businesses into the same "non-PhD" category which will also include illiterate people, which is ridiculous. This focus on PhD or nothing is just so ludicrous especially since the Canadian and Australian systems do have a far more comprehensive and fair system to evaluate each candidate's academic qualifications.
Delete