Unemployment 1.7 million - why 500,000 poles ?

[vehelpfulguy]

Unemployment has today hit 1.7 million.

Can anyone explain why then we need 500,000 poles here (the number that have come since they joined the EU).

If the Poles will do the jobs the English wont (or cant) then maybe it is time to stop featherbedding people on the dole and tell them they have 3 months to find a job or their money stops.

One UK bus company is bringing poles over to be bus drivers. Why the h*ll, with 1.7 million people unemployed, do we need to bring poles over to do bus driving, hardly the most difficult job in the world.

[ummmm]

There are obviously a lot of people who would rather claim benefits than do a job that they would consider below them.

[sp1814]

If we stopped payments to the unemployed, we'd affect their kids too, wouldn't we?

Would you be happy with the return/increase in childhood poverty?

Also, yep - there are those who are ******** layabouts, but there are those who are genuinely looking for work in their chosen industry.

If the company is specifically bringing in Polish bus drivers because they have the necessary qualification (PSV licence) it's probably because it makes economic sense for them to do that.

They won't bring in Poles if it were more expensive, would they!

[Pippa68]

it stands to reason...as sp indicates, the Brits need/want more money to keep their heads above water than Eastern Europeans ~ and companies need/want to save money.

[admarlow]

Too many people would prefer to appear on Trisha and go out stealing things from JJB than actually going to work. Its probabily against their human rights to make them work, so instead they get fat on Big Macs (which I pay for) while sitting in squalid homes (that I also pay for) watching TV (on the TV they nicked from my house). And they say there is no slavery, well arn't I a slave to these scum? God bless the government.

[LazyGun]

Does the minimum wage apply to immigrant workers?
If so, how is it they are viewed as being "cheaper"? than their domestic counterparts?

[admarlow]

Lazygun, in things like construction you can get an eastern european plasterer for half the cost of a British one so it really comes into play for jobs above the minimum wage.

[LazyGun]

So technically, those firms not paying the minimum wage to immigrant workers are breaking the law?

[Miss Inquiry]

As ummmm puts it the Poles do the jobs the English don't seem to want. A lot of Poles that have moved over here seem to be really hardworking, they are proud to be here, earning money often to support their families back home. Companies I suppose see them as reliable and therefore are keen to employ them, hence the bus company.

Minumum wage applies the same to the Poles as it does to the English, however with the Polish economy being so diferent from ours the money they earn here for a relativley menial job, they would earn the same at home for a very respectble high powered job, hence their enthusiasm/dedication.

If we are so lazy we don't get up and do the work, we can't moan when someone else does it.

[admarlow]

Lazy gun what I ment is that both polish and British works get more than the minimum wage but the British ones want A LOT more.

BTW a lot of Ploes etc work for my family and they are VERY good hard skilled & loyal workers

[libertie]

I work for a company that generally gets busier in the 4 months leading up to Christmas and we have always had a larg(ish) temporary workforce. In the past many of the temps have been pretty unreliable, turn up late...don't turn up at all..sit in the canteen for hours feeling unwell, for which they're not paid, but it also means that the factory is running shorthanded...constantly want a loo / fag break etc etc etc! Now, not all temps are like that and they are still being employed by us but the Poles are much more reliable...ask the agency for 30 and 30 turn up and do a decent days work! And we pay above the minimum wage to all our temps, regardless of where they are from! We also have a policy of offering temps a full time position when one becomes available.

[LazyGun]

ahh okies ad...thanks for the clarification.

[BigDogsWang]

I work for a Recruitment Consultancy dealing with Technical & Engineering staff. My biggest problem with Eastern Europeans is not they they are unskilled or unreliable, but that I just can't communicate with them! On paper, some of them look very employable with some highly relevant skills. But a number of my clients simply refuse to employ them because of this reason.

My second point is these guys are not going to work for peanuts for long, once they begin to realise the true cost of living in this country.

[Miss Inquiry]

BigDogsWang, an awful lot of them come over here alone and send the money they make back home to Poland. The Polish have a much stronger sense of family that the British have, grandparents often live with their children and grandchildren, so the sense of providing for your family is greater. The materialism of the western world is also not as established in their culture, so what kind of car they drive (for example) is not as important, so they can survive on lower wages for longer and be somewhat happier.

[kwicky]

Is the unemployment figure of 1.7 million based on those claiming unemployment benefit? If so the true figure of those out of work is far higher. If you also add those that are claiiming disability living allowance together that figure will probably be nearer 5 million out of work. It is the fiddling of these figures by the current and previous administrations that present such a distorted figure.

[libertie]

Agree with BDW about the language issue, what we have found is that many of the younger Poles have good English and they in turn interpret for the older ones...okay in a place like this where they are doing fairly repetitive unskilled work but far more problematic, I would think, in a skilled position!

[tyler06]

homeless charities claim 400'000 adults live on the streets so how did they find accommodation for the poles and others?

[anotheoldgit]

Could we not import some foreign politicians over here, who are prepared to do the job for alot less than we pay those waste of space layabouts, that sometimes sit on the benches in the House of Commons?

[sp1814]

incidentally, in my post timed at 11.16am, I used a word that starts with the letter 'f', but rhymes with 'reckless'.

God knows why I was 'bleeped'???

[sandbach99]

Last Monday BBC1 7.30 pm there was a programme about this, most Poles were being paid the minimum wage giving them a take-home pay of �200 per week, BBC followed one Pole to his lodgings a terraced Victorian house 13 Poles lived in this one house each paying �180 per month and no other bills to pay. How many people in either mortgaged or rented property only pay �180 a month, even owning the property outright would leave them still to pay council tax, gas, electric, water rates and repair bills.

They also showed a British factory worked who had been sacked cecause there were no more orders, the week after the locals left, low and behold, another contract materialized, but did they re-employ the workers just finished, no the factory owners employed Poles. Those that were laid off are probably on the Unemployed totals.
The same is happening on building sites but note the price of the property doesn't come down, the only beneficiaries are the employers.

A local bus company now employs an exclusively Polish work force when one of these buses went the wrong way round an very busy roundabout nearly causing multiple crashes, did the boss care, no, he didn't even ask where or when, just became abusive.

Job seekers allowance is paid for 6 months max after that you can only claim means-tested benefit, this usually means if the partner works full-time the entitlement is nil, worth staying unemployed for?