"British jobs for British workers."

[miasmum]

We have an apprentice as work. She is our second one. The first one, was hopeless. She couldn't spell, she couldn't even write. And to see how she addressed an envelope was shocking. She was released and we took a second one, but this time the Assistant Practice Manager went along and set them tests to do. We now have Kyra. She is younger than the last one, she is only 17 but so far she is doing really well. Its a very very tough job being a Doctors Receptionist, especially at that young age and I can't say I exactly agree with it, but she is doing well.

I hope the apprenticeship scheme will help youngsters get on the job ladder.

With regard to the carer's that is down to the employers. We will not accept anyone on Luke's team who does not have English as their first language and does not share his culture. Our care provider is happy with this and only interviews people who meet that criteria.

In my local Morrisons the cashiers I see are mainly mature ladies, mostly English, apart from a couple of Vietnamese who have lived here for years.

Taxi drivers are on the whole European or African but is that because it is such a horrible job these days, we have weekly news reports of taxi drivers being mugged, they are the only ones willing to take it on?

Again yes cleaners are mainly Eastern European but we advertised for a cleaner at work for a month, notice up in the surgery, asking around, nothing. We went to the job centre and have two Polish girls, they are pretty useless but they were all the choice we had.

I still think whilst you can earn more by being out of work than you can by working, the balance will never readdress. Whether that should be by less benefits or higher wages, well obviously the latter would be best, but the former needs addressing too.

[cromwell]

I still think whilst you can earn more by being out of work than you can by working, the balance will never readdress. Whether that should be by less benefits or higher wages, well obviously the latter would be best, but the former needs addressing too.

I absolutely agree. There should be a benefit cap. Some of the huge families pulling in thousands a month would never be able to get jobs that gave them the same level of income.

[miasmum]

and its not just those with huge families Cromwell. My friends daughter is 23, she is a single mother of two. She is doing a catering course and doing really well. The the truth of the matter is, regardless of how qualified she is, she will not be able to work as child care is so expensive. That is something else that needs addressing, but for everyone, not just single parents on benefits

We need workplace nurseries, that provide subsidised child care.

[Workingman]

Whilst I agree with what is being said there is another side to the story, and I saw it first hand.

Those from Europe come over in groups. They take on rentals and fill them up two to a room, including downstairs. They might only be working for minimum wages, but with six or seven sharing all costs it is quite a money spinner, in their terms. Properties in Poland can be bought outright for about £25,000. A Pole working here can be mortgage free by the age of 25 if that is what they want, and many of them do. In Romania and Bulgaria there are properties with land for less than £10,000.

These conditions are not even remotely open to our own youth when the average price of a property is £170,000. Even if they club together and live like hermits a 25 year mortgage is beyond them.

[miasmum]

I have seen it first hand too WM. We had a lovely Polish girl working at my previous surgery. There were 8 of them in a house, because that was the only way they could afford. It had an outside toilet and half the time no hot water. The landlord was an Asian man who was just interested in their rent.

Although, my friends niece stayed in a similar hovel in her first year at uni.

The fact that mortgages are so hard to get without a deposit is not down to the immigrant workers, and that is why our youngsters can't buy, they can't save enough for the deposit

[Workingman]

I wasn't saying that the lack of mortgages was down to migrant workers. What I was getting at is that those migrant workers can come here for four or five years and buy a house outright - mortgage free - back home. That will never be an opportunity for many of our own workers.

It is also the case that much of their earnings are not getting back into the UK economy. Large chunks of them are going overseas. I used a Polish supermarket in Leeds market, because it does the best ever sausages, and it also acted as a money transfer portal for the Polish workers to send £hundreds home. Polish interest rates are not brilliant, but they are about three times ours, and exchange rates work in their favour as well.

There are many advantages for migrant workers coming here that are simply not available to the indigenous population, and it is not at all down to making it more beneficial to be on benefits than in work. Not all of the 2 million unemployed are worthless scroungers, many of them had good jobs before the recent depression.

[miasmum]

Working man I would never ever imply that the unemployed are worthless scroungers. My friends daughter, who I mentioned earlier would love to work, if only she could afford child care.
I am sorry if you thought that

Of course there must be benefits, if there weren't then there wouldn't be so many of them here would there?

But I do believe that they will do work that a lot of English won't do, which is why they end up on farms, because the farm owners can pay them less than a British worker because as you say, the exchange rate at home is good so it is worth it. Rightly or wrongly, because lets face it we are talking slave labour here, a British person won't get out of bed for the hourly rate some immigrant workers earn.

I was just wondering and maybe someone can explain. Why have so many Eastern Europeans started up hand car washes? We have three near us. One lot are Polish, and the other Lithuanian. Why didn't the English think of this idea?

[Workingman]

No, no. I was definitely not saying that you were putting all the unemployed in the 'scroungers' category. Not at all.

What I am saying is that conditions back home do make it beneficial for migrants to get out of bed and do a day's work. They have the possibility of going home and owning a mortgage free property - it is a big incentive to put up with poor(er) working conditions for a few years. That is not the case, and never will be, for the low skilled British worker. They do not have that leg-up.

We cannot all be highly qualified and in well-paid jobs, there will always be those at or near the bottom. Low skilled jobs will always be in demand, and as far as I am concerned we should make them pay for our own workforce rather than migrants.

[miasmum]

but would our workforce do them, if they can get more on benefit?

I honestly don't think they would.

As I said earlier we couldn't get a cleaner at work for love nor money. We have two Polish ones now. But not for want of trying. Our surgery is in a socially deprived area, we thought someone would be glad of a few quid, but they weren't

Its like the car washes, would a group of British men be prepared to work at hard manual labour from early morning to late at night, 7 days at week? No personally I don't think they would.

Of course there are British people that will work for a pittance, but sadly not many and most of them are the older generation, and by that I mean 40's upwards.

[Workingman]

It really pisses me off that people actually believe that most of those on benefits are better off than in work. Yes, we have TV programmes such as Benefit Street and Life on Benefits, but FCOL they seek out the most useless individuals, the chancers, the system workers, and make out that they are the norm. They are not.

A lot of people on benefits had good jobs before they were made redundant during the recession. They did not want, or ask to be, unemployed. Many of them are stuck in positions they never expected to be in, not in a million years, but there they are.

Yes, there are those who abuse the system, and yes we should do more to root them out, but let's not pretend they are the majority. The majority of people on benefits are those in work whose employers do not pay them a living wage, and they have to resort to working tax credits and the likes.

As for the car washers: if Brits could do that for five years and then go home and buy as house outright I actually do think that many would do it. They might carry on doing for a few extra years in order to buy a house to let.