Category Archives: employment

Youth unemployment: how to cure it

The essay below is my  entry to the HJI-Reed Youth Unemployment Prize – see http://www.henryjacksoninitiative.org/

Robert Henderson

When things change the surest way to identify a cause is to identify all the conditions which obtained before the change and then look for new conditions which have emerged since the beginning of the change.   By this method the rise in youth unemployment on the UK  is  simply explained: it is the result of the great increase in immigration to the UK. [1]

The rise in youth employment started in 2004  long before the current economic woes  began in 2007.  This coincided with the  removal of restrictions on the movement of workers from the new EU states  (Czech Republic Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Slovakia and Slovenian  Malta and Cyprus).   Hence, the rise cannot be blamed on the poor state of the economy.

None of the other explanations offered for the rise in youth unemployment are plausible.  The British education system has not changed since 2004; the attitude of young people as a group towards work cannot suddenly have altered;  contrary to popular myth,  most jobs are low-skilled or unskilled so a skill shortage does not come into it for the vast majority of jobs taken by immigrants; where skills are  needed it is wildly improbable that the skills available dropped off a cliff at just the time immigration rose massively.

If employers could no longer import cheap labour they would be forced to employ Britons (including young Britons) , offshore their business or  cease to trade.  As most British economic activity has of necessity  to take place in Britain, either  because the goods can only be made in Britain (for example, Scotch Whiskey) or the service has to be provided in Britain because it is of a nature  which makes this necessary (for example, virtually all public services and retail, transport and energy businesses) , offshoring is not an option  for the vast majority of British employers.

As for ceasing to trade,  it is unlikely that there would be a large amount of that occurring because the wages paid to adult immigrant workers would be at least sufficient to cover the wages of young  British workers.  As for the idea that young Britons cannot do most of the jobs that immigrants are doing this can be easily seen to be a nonsense. In areas of Britain where there are not large numbers of immigrants the jobs which are supposedly beneath Britons are done by Britons. Moreover, we know that before 2004 British youngsters were being employed in the jobs now being done by immigrants.

For skilled jobs,  there are huge numbers of unemployed British graduates who either cannot get  jobs at all or who are forced to do jobs for want of anything better which do not require a degree.  [2]

The claims by  British employers  that they are  employing foreign workers because they cannot find suitable people is hard to credit.  Even if there was a problem with the attitude of young Britons, for which I see no evidence  as a general problem, it would not explain why older workers with a good work history are being overlooked.   In particular,  it is implausible that foreign workers are better equipped for jobs dealing with the public because  many  foreigners  employed in such jobs have inadequate English and a lack of knowledge about British culture.

It is important to understand that many jobs in Britain are effectively placed  out of reach to Britons of any age.  Foreign gangmasters  are widely used  and frequently only recruit people of their own nationality. British Employers find foreign workers are cheaper to employ,  easier to control and  less difficult to lay off. A  substantial proportion of the jobs, especially the low and unskilled,  are going to illegal immigrants who are even more  vulnerable to demands from employers .   Foreign companies  in Britain bring  in their own people[3] .

When foreign workers gain a foothold in an area of  business they recommend  people they know for jobs .   Being foreign,  the people they recommend will normally be other foreigners, especially those of their own nationality.  It does not take long for a place of work to become largely or wholly foreign staffed with this type of recruitment .  There are also agencies which only  supply foreign workers.   Public service organisations and large companies  are often use such agencies[4].

Sometimes the employer has employment practices which effectively  exclude Britons, for example, Pret a Manger, use as part of their selection process a vote  by the staff of a shop where a potential trainee has had a trial as to whether the trialist  should be taken on.  It does not take too much imagination to suspect that foreign workers will vote  for other foreign workers, especially from their own country,  if there is a choice between them and a Briton[5].

The only way the young in Britain will be able to get jobs is by regaining control over  Britain’s borders so that mass immigration can be stopped.   To do that Britain would have to leave the EU or come to an arrangement with the EU which prevented free movement of labour from the European Economic Area  (EEA) to Britain.   It would also need a government  willing to cancel all other forms of mass immigration from outside the EEA such as family reunification and reinstate the primary purpose rule governing those coming to Britain to marry.

The brutal truth is that if  mass immigration is not ended the situation will continue as it is and quite probably get worse as the Euro crisis worsens.  It is self-evident that if millions of experienced workers willing to work for low wages are imported into a country the size of Britain they will displace the native workers generally and the young and inexperienced native person in particular.

No need to speaka da English in the NHS

Robert Henderson

Speaking in the House of  Lords Lord Winston, professor of fertility studies at Imperial College London,   has warned that the employment of nurses from within the EU and the European Economic Area  (EEA – this is the EU and countries with looser trade arrangements with the EU  such as Norway and Switzerland)  in the NHS is resulting in nurses whose English is inadequate for the job.  This he attributes to the fact that nurses (and doctors)  from within the EU do not have to pass an English test because that would breach the freedom of movement  of labour within the EU.  Medical staff coming from outside the EU are subject to an English test.

Describing the situation as intolerable, Winston went on to say:

‘It is not right for fellow practitioners to have to work with these individuals…But most of all it is not right for citizens of our country, who at times when they are unwell and becoming patients in our healthcare systems need to be absolutely certain that the practitioners to whom they are exposed are competent, meet the standards required of medical practitioners in our country and therefore can with certainty provide the quality of care that citizens in our country deserve.’ ( http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2035316/Lord-Winstons-stark-warning-NHS-workers-Romania-Bulgaria.html#ixzz1XUKU7UG3).

Winston’s criticism is  welcome but does not deal with the wider problem of inadequate English within the NHS.  The problem extends across the full range of foreign nurses and doctors wherever they come from.  I can vouch for this from my recent experience of a large central  London hospitals.

Two years ago I  spent ten days in the hospital.  During that time I encountered few nurses or doctors who had English as a first language. Some spoke English  adequately but most did not.  Those who were inadequate fell into three classes:

1. Those whose comprehension and understanding of the language was simply inadequate.

2. Those who had accents so thick it was very difficult to understand them.

3. Those who could speak English competently  but who could not readily understand English if it was either colloquial or deviated far from  “BBC English”  (received pronunciation) .

These deficiencies  were amplified by the fact that sick people are frequently not at their most coherent and if someone is not absolutely fluent in the language they speak , understanding on both sides, that of the patient and the medical staff, will be very difficult.

The problem of language stretches beyond the  nurses and doctors  to technicians such as radiographers , the clinic administrators, the pharmacists , the porters, the ward orderlies and the cleaners. There is ample opportunity for these people to make serious mistakes simply because they do not understood what is said to them.

The problem is exacerbated  where the work has been contracted out to private operators not under the control of the hospital. During my stay in hospital I discovered that these services had  placed in the hands of three separate private operators:  patients’ meals, ward cleaning and the maintenance of multi-media installations (TV, radio, Internet, phone). This produced a constant flow of   people into wards over whom the ward sister had no control.

Why has Winston not gone further in his criticism? Possibly because the pressures of political correctness make it difficult for him to criticise medical staff coming from outside the EEA as  they are commonly black or Asian, whereas those from  the EEA are mostly white.  Also as a doctor, he will be  naturally reluctant to criticise fellow doctors wherever they come from.

Others have been less reticent, at least about EEA doctors: “Jim Morrison, chairman of Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, has said: “I don’t want to sound racist but some of the worst-speaking doctors I have come across have been from Europe.””
( http://ukgovernment.co/do-doctors-that-cannot-speak-english-put-uk-patients-at-risk/500182).  The Britsh Medical Assaociation has also expressed great concern about EEA doctors some of whom has needed interpreters when working. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8414727/Foreign-doctors-work-in-Britain-without-speaking-English.html

 

 

The number of foreign nurses  and doctors in the UK has increased massively  in recent years. In  2006 the Royal College of Nursing  reported that 90,000 foreign nurses had registered in the UK since 1997 (http://www.rcn.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/78703/003049.pdf) and after  language tests for EEA nurses was removed in October 2010 1,500 registered in the following five months ( http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2035316/Lord-Winstons-stark-warning-NHS-workers-Romania-Bulgaria.html#ixzz1XUXxkt6p).

As for doctors, in 2008 nearly half of the 277,000 doctors registered  in the UK had obtained their  first medical degree abroad (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3321919.ece) and in 2011 around ten per cent of doctors registered  (22,060) were from the EEA, (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2035316/Lord-Winstons-stark-warning-NHS-workers-Romania-Bulgaria.html#ixzz1XUZL0RaD)

Why has this massive influx occurred and is still occurring?  It is difficult to explain on the face of things for British trained  doctors and nurses  have been unable to find work in Britain because of the foreign influx (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3321919.ece and http://www.nursingtimes.net/specialist-news/acute-care-news/immigration-cap-leaves-trusts-unable-to-hire-staff/5019121.article). The answer is probably the same as it is for jobs generally in the UK, those responsible for employing  health staff are giving preference to foreign staff over native Britons because they are cheaper, easier to sack and less likely to complain about poor conditions or treatment.  The employers  may also have been influenced by the constant contemptible  claims of politicians and others with access to the mass media that British workers generally  are not up to the job.  When the practice becomes institutionalised it becomes the norm.

It is also probable that British hospitals  recruit nurses and doctors  through agencies which deal largely or solely in foreign medical staff.  In those instances the jobs will never appear of the open labour market.    Where that happens there are obvious opportunities for corrupt practice. For example,  agencies paying a kickback to the person who employs someone they supply . It is also possible that foreign staff may pay bribes to those making staff appointments to get the job, something most people from abroad would not find odd because it is the norm to pay bribes in  their country of origin.

What applies to doctors and nurses applies to all the other staff in a hospital, including those working for private contractors on contracted out work.

Just as immigration into Britain generally has swelled mightily since the late 1990s, so has the employment of immigrants in the NHS. Since the late 1990s  I have been attending as an outpatient the hospital  where I was an in-patient two years ago. When I started the  large majority of staff both medical and administrative were British.  Now they are in the minority.  At a time of high unemployment  there should be no difficulty in employing mostly British staff at the non-medical level.  We could also employ many more British nurses and doctors if we did not drive them abroad by filling positions with foreigners .   That, together with very stringent English tests for foreigners where these are required, would remove the problem of  doctors and nurses with inadequate English.

To achieve control over who we may or may not allow into Britain to work will require Britain’s withdrawal from the EU and any other treaties which affect our ability to control our orders.