A pretty important announcement came down from the Home Secretary Tuesday regarding the increased length of advertising time of UK jobs to UK workers. Has the appearance of a bold move to get Britons back to work, though referring to non-EU workers (like I myself used to be) as a “cheaper alternative” is a tad frightening and will rightly get some civic groups angry.
Kudos to Personnel Today for this story (the BBC has the political implications of this move here):
From Personnel Today:
Employers will have to advertise jobs to UK workers for at least a month before offering them overseas, the government has announced. (Boldface theirs)
Home secretary Alan Johnson said yesterday that from next year the legal minimum period to post vacancies at Jobcentre Plus will double from two weeks, the BBC has reported.
Johnson added that this will mean that non-EU workers can no longer be used as a “cheaper alternative” to those from the UK… (boldface mine)
The minimum qualification period for non-EU workers transferring to a company’s UK base is to increase from six months to a year, Johnson added.
The Home Office estimates that one in 10 of the non-EU workers given permits last year would be excluded under the new rules.
To the UK Home Secretary, most workers living under these flags could be construed by UK businesses as a 'cheaper alternative' in labour. While politically incorrect, recent law changes may prove beneficial to the amount of time a job can be posted for UK workers.
The BBC reports that Johnson said “the government had accepted all the recommendations made recently by its Migration Advisory Committee.”
Interestingly, the BBC story also indicated the Labour government’s move Tuesday pales in comparison to the Tories’ plans to quell the influx of overseas-born workers, which reached a total of 3.8 million last year.
The Home Office estimates that one in 10 of the non-EU workers given permits last year would be excluded under the new rules…
Under this, employers can only recruit “skilled” workers from non-EU countries if they cannot fill a vacancy or the occupation is on a list of shortage occupations.
The Conservatives have called for an annual cap on non-EU migrants.
Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said: “The home secretary should stop overselling what are pretty minor changes. The idea that this would cut work permits by 10% is just a fantasy figure.
“The way to control work permits is to have an annual limit, which the government short-sightedly refuses to introduce.”
Of concern to us at Arras People:
- The political issue at hand here is clearly immigration. But is there going to be a reciprocal willingness from Labour or the Tories to provide effective job training & make UK workers that much more appealing to hiring managers?
- Is one’s ability to state on their CV: ‘Willing to Work Overseas’, going to become a novelty that fades with our generation?
- By contrast, does this dowtrodden UK project managers the needed addition of hope?
- Moreover, does it make them that much more hireable now than they were before?
Our hope? ‘Yes’, ‘Absolutely Not’, ‘Yes’ and ‘Shouldn’t Have Needed Any Law to Make it So, They’re Just What I Need’.
Image attributed to futureatlas.com (also available here) and reprinted with permission
