Where The Hell Are The Romanians And Bulgarians???

[sp1814]

Remember at the end of last year, when several news sources warned of the hundreds of thousands of Romanians and Bulgarians all champing at the bit to come over to the UK from January 1st?

What happened?

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/may/14/number-romanian-bulgarian-workers-falls-border-controls

From the Office of National Statistics:

"The labour force survey figures show that there were 122,000 Romanians and Bulgarians nationals working in Britain in March this year – a fall from 125,000 in December just before the last seven-year transitional controls were lifted on the new EU members on 1 January."

[emmie]

they are dotted all over the capital, if you don't like fact, tough.
many Eastern Europeans may be here to work, however many are largely unskilled, so will try and find day work like, or the odd painting job, the police move on a regular lot who hang around near a B&Q store, up near Old Kent Road, whenever i have been there there are always lots milling about. as to those women who sell the big issue, does this not constitute some form of work, so they can be afforded an NI number, sure someone mentioned that before, not sure if that is true, would be interested to know.

[ummmm]

Unskilled? You're just guessing, Emmie.

[New Judge]

Possibly not unskilled, ummm (though if I had to bet..) but certainly not gainfully employed.

Yes, but payment of tax in Greece has always been akin to the church collection plate, Khandro. (In fact most churches do better than the taxman). But they did not suffer the sort of meltdown they had recently because they simply devalued their way out of trouble. Your description of their economy is the same as mine - nothing to sell except a few olives and some hotel rooms. And yes, they are in the main lovely people for whom I have great deal of sympathy because of the way they have suffered as a result of their EU and (particularly) their euro membership.

[emmie]

going on those i see in and around the capital, if they have skills which we need why are they selling copies of the Big Issue. many may be gainfully employed, however i do wonder that this country has had to take a huge amount of people in with no extra funding, for housing, schools, hospitals, doctors surgeries, and plenty more besides. If they work in the black economy by the way, that means not paying tax, and they work on building sites, that could be dangerous for them as they have no come back if an accident occurs, applies to any worker not on a contract.

[sp1814]

naomi24

It's probably down to perspective. Because I work for a company that employs very skilled immigrants and because I have personally employed several contractors, builders, carpenters, decorators (etc) from Eastern Europe, I have a view of immigrants (in general) positively.

I would find it hard to look at my mother and father and consider them 'a problem', but I'm sure that there are other people who look at them (without actually knowing them) and wish they weren't here.

Hell...they probably even look at me and think the same thing.

Not my problem really.

[emmie]

i worked with people from all around the world, however many were born here, Indian, Pakistani, Greek, and a few English, British thrown in for good measure, they were mostly hard working, middle to high income technical people, in a very competitive market. However those had attained good qualifications, very high expectation in the job, and the job market, they weren't the sort you would let go unless they were a complete duffer, and only one fitted that bill and he was advised to move on. people like this are needed, but we should be looking inhouse, not abroad for our good workers, and training young people in these types of jobs, not handing out degrees in media studies, as interesting as that might be