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Now it's British jobs for British graduates
Exclusive: Ministers plan tightening of immigration controls to help university leavers find work
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The Government may restrict the number of highly skilled migrants allowed into Britain because ministers fear many of the record 400,000 graduates leaving university this summer will fail to find work in the recession.
Phil Woolas, the Immigration minister, wants to tighten the points-based system for people from outside the EU so they do not take jobs that might otherwise go to British graduates. Between 10,000 and 18,000 well-qualified foreigners are expected to come to the UK this year to look for work without having a job lined up.
Mr Woolas told The Independent: "The points-based system that has been introduced allows us to toughen the criteria, and clearly in the economic situation that is something it is beholden on us to do. We want to maintain the highest possible levels of British graduate employment."
The proposal has been under consideration for some weeks and ministers insist it is not a reaction to the row over the recruitment of foreign workers at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire. However, it is bound to be seen as an attempt to ensure "British jobs for British graduates".
Under the recently introduced points system (which Mr Woolas proposes tightening), highly skilled people from outside the EU, such as scientists, IT specialists, lawyers, financial service workers and entrepreneurs can enter Britain to search for work. Normally graduates, they can stay initially for two years.The Home Office estimates they could boost the economy by up to £84m a year.
Government sources said Mr Woolas's plan was "one option" under consideration but that no final decision has been taken. It could face opposition from John Denham, the Skills Secretary, who is believed to think there is no need to change the points system since it already takes account of possible skills shortages.
However, the Government is under pressure from MPs to tighten the rules because of the downturn. Labour's Frank Field and the Conservatives' Nicholas Soames, who have set up a cross-party group on balanced migration, have written to Gordon Brown, asking him to act. They said the new points system would allow tens of thousands of highly skilled people to come to Britain looking for work. "We believe that, in a recession, this cannot be allowed to continue," the two MPs said. "We should not be allowing non-EU economic migrants to look for work."
The Woolas plan will be discussed by cabinet ministers as they draw up a package of measures on immigration over the next few weeks. Other ideas include forcing employers who hire skilled workers to advertise the posts at Jobcentres before they look abroad. This could affect between 60,000 and 80,000 jobs in construction, hotel management, teaching and nursing.
Last night, experts said there could be short-term political and economic attractions in curbing the number of foreign graduates, but warned that it could be counterproductive in the long run. Tim Field, head of migration, equalities and citizenship at the Institute for Public Policy Research, said the points system might prove an "inflexible" tool. "These are people every country wants," he said. "This would send a signal to others. Putting others off from applying might not be a good idea."
Other government proposals include a crackdown on "bogus" colleges which allow non-EU students to come to Britain as a backdoor means of immigration, and tighter checks on foreign students so they do not overstay.
Mr Denham has outlined plans to persuade British firms to take on graduates as "interns" in the hope that they will keep on the best and brightest so their companies are in a stronger position after the recession.
As the Government sought to raise the proportion of young people going into higher education to 50 per cent, the number of graduates rose from 206,000 in 1997 to 358,000 in 2007. The proportion of graduates in "non-degree level" jobs five years after leaving university has risen too.
John Cridland, deputy director general of the CBI, said companies were already cutting the number of migrant workers they recruit because of the recession. He believed the Government's Migration Advisory Committee would suggest that fewer migrants from outside the EU would be needed when it next reports. He expected "they will not see the same need for non-EU labour in the same numbers because of the need to provide as many employment opportunities as possible for the unemployed". He added: "All I'm suggesting is that the market will correct itself but what we cannot avoid is a significant increase in unemployment which is a sad but inevitable consequence of recessions."
From sociology to gas fitting: Three students look to the future
Graeme Waddell, 30
Criminology and sociology, Stirling University
I have been toying with the idea of doing a postgraduate course in social work but I need to know my results before I can consider this. I have also been considering learning a skilled trade as I'm worried my degree might not be worth anything in these uncertain times. I hope I haven't wasted the past few years as a student, when I would have been better off becoming a plumber or a gas fitter, where there are more opportunities. My student loan does not worry me as I am used to being in debt. My friends are going to Amsterdam when we graduate but I'll stay here looking for a job.
Helen Cook, 23
Occupational therapy, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh
For a newly qualified physiotherapist the situation in Scotland is pretty hopeless – the NHS has been useless in creating new posts. I think I will travel to India next year. Hopefully I can volunteer in a hospital to gain experience. A lot of people on my course (five out of 40) are getting posts in New Zealand – they have a great scheme where they train you, sort out your visas and so on. When I do look for a job, I don't think I'll find it easy, partly because I will be quite picky. I'm not thinking I will have to take anything because of the credit crunch. I think graduates will still be picky and hold out for what they want.
Franck Martin, 22
Politics, University of Glasgow
It couldn't be a worse time to be a graduate. I'm going to try and stay out of the job market for at least a year or two as there are so few jobs available for graduates now. I will do some work experience and keep on with my work stacking shelves part time at Tesco so I earn enough money for a postgraduate degree in either public policy or journalism. I would like to work in the media but the civil service appeals because of the job security it provides. My brother works in the civil service and he says their graduate schemes are more popular than ever.
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Comments
It's when you are a worker, like the welders / biolermakers in current dispute, that they say to you 'oh, the EU says we must allow it' mode - having dropped the earlier claim that zillions of unskilled and often illegal, immigrants are "needed" as cheap fodder for the (black) economy that kept the Brown economy afloat for a decade.
Whether both flavours of governmental conduct for the past thirty years, since the children's milk snatcher took office, is symptomatic of schizophrenia or mere unscrupulous day to day opportunism, is unclear, but not so the fact that government has been seriously dysfunctional and actually anti-social.
I worked in UK and US once for 2 years to spend time network with people in our office there so that I can act as a bridge when I return home.
China is buying UK tools for its stimilation projects and they need UK staff to come over to teach their people how to use the tools.
If I were you, I would learn the Chinese language (as much as Chinese graduates learn English). My daughter is studying in UK to learn English and Spanish.
The world is for all of you to conquer. We Chinese say, "Do not look at the sky from the bottom of a well."
It seems much more comfortable to stay at home than moving abroad.
Because of the downturn, it might be useful for UK people to move and spend their professionality where required. And to learn a foreign language. Exactly as world's graduate do, successfully and happily.
Now tell me how many Media Studies or Socialogy and Travel Studies or Criminolgy graduates do we need ??? Subsidize only those subjects that are in need; those obscure and abstract subjects should be entirely funded by students and their sponsors and not be a burden on the taxpayer.
From my own experience, I note that we are very eager to fail a large proportion of the nursing graduate intake as a natural culling process rather than offer the educational and academic supports that people need. This shortfall is then made up by the overseas contigent.
The nursing degrees / diplomas that people have to take to enter into the profession are highly academic, contain a great deal of biology and maths. Our educational system fail to deliver the level required for many. Therefore the failure rate is quite high.
It seems to me that this is a major failing of the system.
Not only is it 'depression suicide' to look after your own graduates where there has already been an investment in education. The thought of further costs of the graduates in there support if unable to find Post Graduate positions where their skills and education can be fully utilised and that is what they want and require - A job at the end.
Towards the other end of the scale make more opportunties for Apprenticeships so as we can use those skils For Great Britain
from ReddkiTTe, Berkshire.
Also please note Apprenticeships aren't really appropriate for a vast amount of jobs, some knowledge has to be obtained first ... the idea of an apprentice doctor "learning on the job" terrifies me!
Also, teaching our young reading, writing and arithmetic would be useful.
What the goverment should be doing is putting in place schemes to improve the skills of our own work force so they can compeate.
Also many foreign workers are suspected of working for lower rates then their British counterparts. I don't know if this is true but if it is, this practise could be legislated out by requiring more transparency equality and fairness in recruitment practises. Particularly where foreign recruitment is predominant.
This government has a terrible track record for introducing policies which have not been fully thought through and this appears to be another one. They appear to be so desperatly wanting to cling to power, that they will introduce one populist policy after another.
They didn't go to the country when they could have won but thankfully they will have to in 2010
They have been proven to be more talented, hardworking and committed than ethnic workers in many cases. If Britain wants to retain its stature as a global power, it should not take these protectionist measures.
Phil will be coming into our offices on Friday to discuss this with us (we're in his constituency) and give comments to the press. I'm inviting any other members of the press to come and discuss this in further detail. We are a company that takes on 5-6 graduates per year and this has been impacted by restrictions on cash-flow that the Government could easily change.
Though we can't comment on the intricacies of campaigning strictly for British Graduates (we are an international translation company who depend on hiring the best of international linguists), our campaign helps British COMPANIES to recruit Graduates. Ergo - This doesn't seem to be a "British-Graduate" problem, but a wholesale problem with sustainable graduate recruitment in Britain - which is related, though dictinctly different.
Matthew Connaughton
Marketing Manager, Applied Language
Oldham
0870 225 0284
Also please note it is not really evidential to make-up wild statements about the beliefs of the hugely diverse demographic that makes up the student body.
Buddhdev Pandya
Bedfordshire
(a EU doctorate working in UK for almost 8 years now)
The Decline of The British Empire
http://valueless.wordpress.com/wp-a
Surely it would be better to continue letting in a fair few immigrants - they're the one with real skills and a work ethos - but encourage all the native criminology and sociology graduates to emigrate.
These days employers only want people with work experience and don't want to train anyone, then complain that they can't find anyone to do the work. If they don't start training the next generation of workers they may soon find that the graduates that went abroad to learn a tradde do not want to return to work for them.
The US immigration system is in such a mess that despite the pet care industry's continued growth in the current climate, a national shortage of vets and a qualification that is both highly academic and practically skilled, it is nigh on impossible to enter the country - marriage or illegal immigration are the fastest routes - hardly an example to be followed.
New Zealand and Australia are well known for strong immigration policies, that let 'the right people' in to boost the economy or fill shortages. The UK Tier 1 seemed to have finally got it right on a similar principle - the points are awarded for having high level qualifications (a bachelors gives the minimum points, with masters, phds and MBAs more highly scored), english speaking ability, ability to support yourself financially and previously high salary.
We should be welcoming the highly skilled, well paid people who are so enthusiastic to come here - to be blunt, not exactly the same folk you attract by advertising at the local job centre. To tighten this part of the system is culturally and economically narrow minded, and a reactionist policy that certainly won't help us out of the recession.
Ever since the children's milk snatcher (effectively) privatised immigration as a business
[we hear about it from time time as some bloke overstepping the line by demanding a personal payment of sex or money - but notably, none of them get prosecuted in case they spill the beans]
'the way' has been to pay a package deals racketeer. That 'way' for a few thou, you get not only entry, but an NI number (probably stolen within the DWP, but so what) a British passport, social housing, social security for yourself and umpteen wives, et cetera.
Should we make plans to deal with our internal benefit cheats, the work shy or criminal elements? No, let's pick on the intelligent, hard working, industrius individuals that have the medium term potential to drag our obese backsides out of this predicament.
On the basis that I am a hard worker & will be committed to my job I do not feel in the slightest bit threatened by migrant workers. Afterall EU law states migrant workers have to be paid the same, therefore business' will hire the more productive employee. Due to the many years of comfortable living it seems people these days often expect to be handed everything without having to work for it & I believe this is the real problem.
Also please note the students quoted above have gained qualifications which are not always practical & are aimed at obtaining jobs which are not really prolific, this I suspect is the real reason behind their future employment troubles.
Also, teaching our young reading, writing and arithmetic would be useful.
How long before there are riots in the streets????