http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13984512 Just read this and I agree that businesses need to put their faith in local people instead of hiring migrant workers. There are so many hugely talented people in the UK who are struggling to find work and are willing to do any job to get their foot on the employment ladder and it is sad that they are being passed over for, in many cases, lower skilled migrant workers. The argument that migrant workers have a better work ethic is such a crock because from my experience they are no more hardworking or willing to do overtime than British workers. There also needs to be tough measures to prevent companies from outsourcing services to countries like India when we have so many people here in the UK who can do the job to a much higher level (I am basing this on the atrocious service I receive when calling companies like BT). I shall now turn the microphone over to the good citizens of not606.
i had an extension done and went by your philosophy. The guys came at 8.30. had breakfast at 10.30 dinner at 1.00 and finished at 4.30 It took them a year when it should have been 6 months max. and 5 years later still arguing about what they did badly or not at all I had a shed built by an afghani bloke, Its better than the extension, he started at 8.00 finished at 8.00 only accepted water and charged me £50 a day labour and did odd bits for free like fitting a couple of doors in my other house **** british, best man for the job and if he happens to be ****in taliban dont care as long as it done properly, on time and reasonable inexpensive Am thinking about getting lofts done next, british guy £13 grand, asian guy £7 grand, afghani bloke £5 grand and will even decorate it etc
In my opinon, it's got to be the person who is the best for the job. If a British person is the best person for the job, hire him. If he isn't, hire somebody else. In the end, businesses will look for the best person for the job. If you ran your own business and you had two people looking for a job. One was English and one was Polish. They would both work for the same money but you knew that the Polish person was the better person for the job, you'd hire him. It would be common sense.
Let the polish have the jobs, so the Brits can live off them in benefits. Sounds like a good idea to me
British people are lazy but that's no excuse. Give them jobs picking veg and if they won't do it, stop their benefits (or shoot them for all I care). Seen so many piss-takers at work especially in big companies, you'll see the same faces sitting in the restaurant all day long reading the paper and chatting, no wonder bosses give jobs to hard-working forrins. As for Iain Duncan Smith urging British companies to employ British people, that's liklely to be as effective as the proverbial chocolate teapot. The only way to bring about this is to either make it pay i.e. change tax rules to favour taking on British staff or close the borders. Talk is cheap.
Polish and Afghan builders - agree I'd rather hire them than British counter parts. But talk to anyone in IT about the quality of the migrant workers being shipped in by the boat load by Lloyds and BT (to name just 2), and you hear a different story. Lloyds are a part nationalised bank, who have put tens of thousands of people on the dole whilst outsourcing the work to India (or bringing in cheap Indians to work here). IT is a business where communication is key - think of your typical call centre experience to India and you might get the picture of what frustration those who're told to pass their knowledge onto cheaper Indian workers (either offshore or migrants) have to go through. BT used to be the staple of thousands of highly qualified technology people in teh 80s and 90s - now it should forced to change to's name Indian Telecom. Listen to stories from British IT workers of the quality of the people they are being replaced with. Politicians seem to have a huge blind spot when it comes to India. They are happy for jobs to go there, they are happy for them to come here to take up jobs at a lower rate than British counter parts, and to top it all, they give India £350 million a year in aid. Mr Mittal alone spent a fair propotion of that on his houses and his kid's wedding. There seems to be a very curious game afoot here.
Foreign builders are ****e! The only reason why they are cheaper is because they pay no taxes, have no insurance and probably claiming benefits as well. You only have to look at the standard of workmanship when you go abroad to see it's carp! Yeah they work long hours blah blah blah but there final out put is still below par!
It definitely depends what work it is. When phoning up British Gas, the customer service is to the point, informative and helpful. They have a great understanding of their clients and I've never had any problems. However, I dread phoning up BT if I have any problems because I KNOW that I'll end up on the phone for atleast 10 minutes longer because it takes so long to get your issue across/make sense of the thick Indian accent on the other end of the line. On the otherhand, where I live alot of the bus drivers are Polish and they are 10x more friendly and helpful than the depressed English sods you're sometimes given.
I hate to state the obvious but business will always go for the cheaper option regardless of quality or ethnic origin That's why there are millions of British unemployed who can't get a job because they want a living wage or are out of school/college and have no experience
I was in India last month for an outsourcing project. We put the project out to tender, the Indians came in at 1/3 the price the local contractors. I went to visit their office, thinking "sweet a wee holiday to India", they kept me in an office locked up getting actual work done for 9 hours a day (then wined and dined me). I got into the office the next day hungover, and the staff who were not in on the wining and dining had all of the previous day's meetings properly documented and formatted into technical plans, waiting to move on. They obviously work much more than 9 hours per day. I asked the Indians how long it would take them to get an extra 20 developers, they apologised because it would take two weeks! We spend 3 months trying to find a single British person to fit the role. At the end of the day, we are all human beings and the human being which works the hardest to offer me the more productive team deserves it more than the other human being who has some sort of sense of national privilege. I am not a capitalist in thinking that the person who offers it cheaper deserves it - I'm a realist, in that some people work harder and demand less - and these factors combined there is no way I'm going to choose the alternative based purely on the fact they happened to be born within a certain distance from me.
But it also works the other way Mick Workers are more likely to work harder for those who give them good treatment, wages and benefits than those who don't and moan at the slightest supposed offence
That's a very hard headed commercial way of looking at it, and from a purely business perspective has it's merits. But at what point do you stop and think that if the jobs go abroad, there will be fewer people in work here, so who will have the money to buy the goods and services? At the end of the day there has to be a money-go-round effect for an all round benefit of strong strong companies and people with a bob or two in their pockets. How can this be achieved if people are being put out of work here? I know we're all human beings, but I will gaurantee you this that no one in India will cry about British jobs - they are cut throat, and our business leaders are taking the easy option and following the rest of the monkeys with MBAs, ably assisted by the politicians. It's just another example of how the British are being squeezed by everyone - councils, cops, governemnt, insurances, universities, big business, taxes, pensions. It's us here in this country, black, white brown, whatever who work hard and pay taxes who are not seen as human beings anymore by those who should be serving and protecting us. Inward migration by people who want to better themselves and contribute is a good thing, and it's one of the reasons why America will remain a strong economic power, but it should never be at the expense of creating an unerprivileged underclass amongst your own people.
The local British tradesman did get greedy and was caught out by the willingness of people who came to this country to work and work hard, but there are still good British tradesmen out there who accept the challenge and do a much better job (in my experience).
Its not just the British tradesman who got greedy, it started at the top, as we have found out with the thieving politicians fiddling their expenses.
Outsource over UK employee I have worked for British Steel and seen what unions can create within a dinosaur! I have also worked for Bt and seen what outsourcing can do to customer appreciation! The sad thing is that its company ethos within both of these that caused apathy and failure! Whilst at BS I was regularly encouraged to quote unrealistic delivery times, faster than our rivals, but by the time the client realised/was told material was running late we were still going to be quicker than the competition! As for BT I remain a customer for reliability, at a premium, as my SKY tv fails more often than my TV line or my broadband! Sorry to state the obvious but regardless of who you get your line,calls,broadband through (Virgin being the exception) you are getting it from BT! Why do you think that broadband comes down but line rental goes up? No line no BB = no bb no line!! For mass general calls it will always be outsourced!
I tried to emphasise that it's not just about price either, these guys work very hard, are very well educated and most of all provide excellent service for an excellent price (but they are software developers, not telephone salesmen you can't understand which is where I think a lot of the negative opinion on outsourcing comes from). After meeting such people, socialising with them and recognising their work ethic it's hard to begrudge them a contract because of their nationality. And the fact that we are pushing money outside of Britain is a short sighted point - my employer as a global internet firm actually generates the vast majority of our revenue from Greece, Spain, Turkey, Australia and Brazil - despite being based in the British Isles the UK remains one of our smallest markets. I think people forgot how much money comes into Britain from the rest of the world with multi-national firms much larger than us such as Vodafone, Tesco, BP etc all being based in the UK while generating huge revenues abroad.
