17 ms·

Britain to Foreign Workers: If You Don't Make $50,000 a Year, Please Leave

79 points by wbsun 11y ago

kartan 11y ago
> non-Europeans on skilled worker visas — known as Tier 2 visas So it only applies to people that were allowed in the country because they are "skilled workers". This kind of visa already has a minimum wage requirement. I read somewhere that they are applying the same rules to stay that they applied to give the visa. Still a change, but not what it looks like in the title.
- moomin 11y ago
  More generally, the existing system works on a points basis, which takes into account a whole bunch of factors that have been tuned for years. You get a certain number of points for a degree, a certain number if you get paid X amount &c And then some numpty who clearly hasn't read past Economics 101 gets it into their head that anyone who doesn't earn 35k isn't pulling their weight.
whack 11y ago
As an immigrant myself, this seems like a vastly superior system compared to most others in the world. Pretty mcuh every country's immigration system falls into one of the following buckets: 1) Market based. Companies "bid" on foreign workers, either directly by paying for the visa, or indirectly using the worker's wage. Some form of quote exists, and the highest bidders win. 2) Lottery. Set a minimum qualifications, which is pretty lenient, and a quota that is significantly lower than the number of qualified applicants. Use a lottery system to decide who gets in and who doesn't. 3) Central planning. Some government agency decides which professions and industries are most important to the country, and need foreign workers the most. Politics, special interests lobbying and/or government incompetence in judging market needs, all figure prominently. 4) Some government bureaucrat, who reads through your life story, and spends 30 minutes meeting with you, gets to arbitrarily decide who stays and who doesn't. 4 scares the hell out of me. 2 is just stupid. I don't have any trust in the government's ability to effectively conduct 3. 1 is the least of all evils unfortunately.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  The US has an even dumber version: 5) Nepotism. If you are related to or sleeping with a citizen, you have a very good chance at getting in.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - kleer001 11y ago
    Almost every country has that. What, do you want to split up families and loved ones?
    - Terr_ 11y ago
      Plus, the US actually does something less-dumb, and expands citizenship to people born in the country, regardless of their parents' status or race. ("Jus soli")
      - yummyfajitas 11y ago
        Why is promoting birth tourism/anchor babies less dumb? I.e., what makes the child of a wealthy chinese woman who visits CA to give birth more deserving of citizenship than peasant who worked very hard to attend college and jump through our citizenship hoops? The original motivation for this rule was to prevent disenfranchisement of former slaves. That goal was achieved, and is no longer relevant since all former slaves are dead.
        rchaud 11y ago
        Pregnant women are screened out during the visa interview process to prevent this from occurring. It's not perfect, in the case of individuals receiving multi-year visas, but those are only provided to individuals who have spent significant time in the US, or have family members who are citizens. Also, a baby born in the US to a non-US citizen parent does not automatically confer the parent with citizenship or permanent residency rights. In the case of "anchor babies", the child usually will not have the right to sponsor his parents for residency until they are 18.
zelos 11y ago
My first thought was that's going to have a big impact on the NHS and the care industry: "Metcalfe says there will be temporary exceptions for people with skills such as nursing, because there is a shortage in the U.K." Presumably central government has perfect information about the job market and will be able to make all the exceptions required in every industry?
- jimrandomh 11y ago
  Hmm? If the prevailing wages are low, then claims that there is a shortage are lies; if there were a genuine shortage, then any employer could guarantee they got as many as they wanted by offering a better wage, and would have already done so. The entire point of setting a wage cutoff is that it's an impartial standard, which can't be fooled by false rumors of shortages. Making exceptions would defeat the purpose, and it would be bad for the people in fields covered by those exceptions.
  - adventured 11y ago
    > If the prevailing wages are low, then claims that there is a shortage are lies That's not necessarily correct. That's only the case in a vacuum, it falls apart in reality. For example, the US has routine shortages of farm field workers, in places like California, for picking etc. The wages are very low. It's a combination of nobody but illegal immigrants wanting to do the job for $10 / hour because it's a miserable job, and the business owner not being able to afford dramatically higher wages. It's a very persistent problem throughout California. In your theory, the wages could only be so low due to a vast over-supply of labor; there are in fact many other reasons an imbalance like that can occur. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/oct/25/decline-farm-labor-immigration-reform/ http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/oct/25/decline... http://www.wsj.com/articles/on-u-s-farms-fewer-hands-for-the-harvest-1439371802 http://www.wsj.com/articles/on-u-s-farms-fewer-hands-for-the... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/us/california-farmers-short-of-labor-and-patience.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/us/california-farmers-shor...
    - MisterBastahrd 11y ago
Someone1234 11y ago
£35K is not unreasonable. However if you ask me it should be £35K outside of London and £38.5K within. It far too easy to find a London job that pays £35K, even a lot of entry positions are in the high 20s (27-28K). That being said, while it is fine for workers, what the UK government have tried to do to people on family visas is very immoral. And has caused a lot of families to be separated. - To sponsor a spouse you must make: £18,600 - To sponsor a spouse and one child you must make: £22,400 (+£2,400 for each additional child). For reference the medium salary in the UK is around £22,044, the average is around £26,500 but neither tell the whole story, the UK has a wide salary disparity (in particular London Vs. elsewhere), and some charities project that the above rules preclude over a third of the population from bringing in their family. Can you imagine being separated from your spouse and child because you don't make enough? Even if that spouse is perfectly able to work? And the worst part is that a lot of people get caught in a poverty trap, where they don't make enough to pay for the skills that they would need to escape it. The problem is these types of rules come from London where wages are much higher and from very affluent individuals who came from money. They typically impact the poorest parts of the UK, but as they say "out of sight out of mind." Who cares if someone in north England cannot see their family for years... Certainly not Westminister.
- edandersen 11y ago
  To elaborate on the spousal visa issue: this only applies to non-EU spouses. As a British citizen, if you decide to marry a non-EU person, be prepared for hell when you try to get them in. However, Germans living in Britain can get their non-EU spouse in under the German rules. These policies are a result of the governments impossible, damaging pledge to get immigration "in the tens of thousands". What happens is that they look at a categorized list of immigration categories, realize they cannot do anything at all about EU immigration so double down on non-EU migration. Except the rules only apply to British citizens, because they are the only people they can apply these rules consistently to. Therefore we are left with the bizarre situation where it is easier for a French person in Britain to get their spouse in than a British person in Britain. There are British people effectively exiled because they went abroad when young, got married and had a kid and cannot return with their family because they don't have a guaranteed job lined up in the UK paying 18k+. The spouses income is deemed irrelevant under the rules, so even if your non-EU spouse can earn well above that, it doesn't matter. Ridiculous, borderline sick fiddling from the government that has severely damaged the family lives of tens of thousands of Britons.
nols 11y ago
In case anyone else wondered in light of the brexit talk, by foreigner they mean people outside the EU.
mabbo 11y ago
My sister works as a primary teacher in the London area. She's Canadian, and can't find a job in Ontario (we pay our teachers very well, so there's rarely a shortage). But the British don't pay their teachers very well, meaning that talented teachers like her who are working hard to contribute to Britain's future for fairly paltry wages would be kicked out of the country under this plan. If Britain can't meet it's demand for teachers at the wages it wants to offer without immigration, how do they expect to do it when they kick all the immigrants out? In essence, it's going to mean that British taxpayers have to foot the bill for the higher wages needed to get British teachers, or else some schools will simply have not enough teachers at all. It saddens me that such a fantastic country would be so short-sighted.
- m0nty 11y ago
  Just one other data point: a friend teaches IT and cannot find any permanent employment, it's all temporary gigs of three or six months. So in some respects, it might be like IT workers - they are there, but employers are ruling them out for inscrutable reasons, and demanding access to migrants instead.
- xioxox 11y ago
  Surely it's a good thing for British teachers to have higher wages? It would encourage British people to go into teaching, become educated and pass on that education. Britain has a problem with stagnant wages and concentration of wealth.
  - vixen99 11y ago
    And it would seem in literacy and numeracy. 2013 OECD study on England's 16 to 24-year-olds: - 22nd for literacy and 21st for numeracy out of 24 countries.
- namenotrequired 11y ago
  One more data point: my friend is a doctor and has lived in the UK for about 9 years. She's terribly overworked and makes less than the stated amount.
ergothus 11y ago
So I've read multiple places that low-income immigrant labor does NOT reduce the demand for local workers, and results in a general increase in wages overall. (which would mean that most countries immigration policies are based on inaccurate fears) I'm totally willing to believe this. But I don't understand it. Is it that some portion of low-income local workers are qualified for more skilled work but there isn't the demand? Something else? Can someone give me the simplified version of events that explains this?
- LaMarseillaise 11y ago
  The income of low-income workers is spent back into the economy, allowing more people to be employed providing the goods that were purchased. This means it at least breaks even. Since it stands to reason that the individual immigrant will benefit from immigrating with a higher income, it is also stands to reason that this income being spent would be greater than if they had stayed where they were.
  - ergothus 11y ago
    That's a net effect - more workers == more work getting done, but doesn't address the general fears of "taking OUR jobs" that I've seen debunked but never really understood. If I'm a minimum wage worker and you increase the pool of minimum wage workers - sure, more jobs will be filled, more money in the economy, but if _I_ can't get a job due to market saturation, my situation is worse regardless. Again, I'm FOR liberal immigration policies, in general, but I've been told the above fear doesn't play out (overall), and I don't understand why.
  - tenpies 11y ago
    > The income of low-income workers is spent back into the economy I think this statement vastly underestimates how much money is remitted back home by foreign workers - even low-income workers. In Canada, we lose about 24 billion USD every year this way [1]. --- [1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/sending-remittances-low-dollar-1.3404145 http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/sending-remittances-low-doll...
roel_v 11y ago
The Netherlands already has this, for comparison. Some other EU countries too, I presume - though I'm not sure.
stegosaurus 11y ago
35K GBP is an odd number. To be honest, most numbers in the UK are. In London, with that salary, you will not be able to buy a studio apartment anywhere within commuting distance of the centre. You'd need to triple it to even think about owning an actual home. In many cities in the north, 35K will get you a home, in cash, in <5 years. How does that work, then? Do we deport people who fully pay off homes and retire because they're not earning 35K? Very odd. Frankly, most of the UK's capital/income thresholds are odd for this exact reason. They end up being piffling amounts in the South East and obscene values in the North.
mschuster91 11y ago
How about the following: 1) All countries drop their borders. 2) All countries begin taxing especially international companies (Amazon, Apple!) fairly and impose sanctions upon countries currently acting as tax heavens. Also, criminally obtained and stashed profits e.g. of (former) dictators or corrupt officials, gets seized and redistributed. 3) Rich(er) countries use this money to actually improve the conditions in the countries where migration originates, no matter if due to poorness, wars, climate change etc. As a planet we cannot longer extract and privatize profits from poor regions and people. It is simply not sustainable (and never has been, tbh).
- SixSigma 11y ago
  > All countries begin taxing especially international companies (Amazon, Apple!) fairly and impose sanctions upon countries currently acting as tax heavens. And who will start this particular ball rolling. There are tax havens in the US - Delaware, UK - London and plenty of other places
  - DrScump 11y ago
    Apple's primary tax havens are overseas, with Ireland being a key one (Apple pioneered the so-called "Double Irish" dodge, laundering profits through Ireland incentives twice.)
rahelzer 11y ago
Great idea. But why limit it to just Foreign workers? Just think how Uber they would be if they would just encourage anybody to use their EU passport and move to Elbonia if they don't pull down $50k.
randyrand 11y ago
"Come April, she will very likely have to leave her British life partner" If I was in that position I would push for a green card marrige. Or perhaps just a normal marrige? not familiar with the dynamics of a life partnership.
- foldr 11y ago
  Being married to your partner doesn't make much difference with respect to British immigration law. It just makes it somewhat easier to show that you really are in a relationship with someone. If she applies for a new visa on the basis that she has a partner who's a British citizen, then her partner will have to meet the income requirement regardless of whether they're married or not.

79 points by wbsun 11y ago

> non-Europeans on skilled worker visas — known as Tier 2 visas So it only applies to people that were allowed in the country because they are "skilled workers". This kind of visa already has a minimum wage requirement. I read somewhere that they are applying the same rules to stay that they applied to give the visa. Still a change, but not what it looks like in the title.

moomin 11y ago
More generally, the existing system works on a points basis, which takes into account a whole bunch of factors that have been tuned for years. You get a certain number of points for a degree, a certain number if you get paid X amount &c And then some numpty who clearly hasn't read past Economics 101 gets it into their head that anyone who doesn't earn 35k isn't pulling their weight.

whack 11y ago

As an immigrant myself, this seems like a vastly superior system compared to most others in the world. Pretty mcuh every country's immigration system falls into one of the following buckets: 1) Market based. Companies "bid" on foreign workers, either directly by paying for the visa, or indirectly using the worker's wage. Some form of quote exists, and the highest bidders win. 2) Lottery. Set a minimum qualifications, which is pretty lenient, and a quota that is significantly lower than the number of qualified applicants. Use a lottery system to decide who gets in and who doesn't. 3) Central planning. Some government agency decides which professions and industries are most important to the country, and need foreign workers the most. Politics, special interests lobbying and/or government incompetence in judging market needs, all figure prominently. 4) Some government bureaucrat, who reads through your life story, and spends 30 minutes meeting with you, gets to arbitrarily decide who stays and who doesn't. 4 scares the hell out of me. 2 is just stupid. I don't have any trust in the government's ability to effectively conduct 3. 1 is the least of all evils unfortunately.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
The US has an even dumber version: 5) Nepotism. If you are related to or sleeping with a citizen, you have a very good chance at getting in.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- kleer001 11y ago
  Almost every country has that. What, do you want to split up families and loved ones?
  - Terr_ 11y ago
    Plus, the US actually does something less-dumb, and expands citizenship to people born in the country, regardless of their parents' status or race. ("Jus soli")
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      Why is promoting birth tourism/anchor babies less dumb? I.e., what makes the child of a wealthy chinese woman who visits CA to give birth more deserving of citizenship than peasant who worked very hard to attend college and jump through our citizenship hoops? The original motivation for this rule was to prevent disenfranchisement of former slaves. That goal was achieved, and is no longer relevant since all former slaves are dead.
      - rchaud 11y ago
        Pregnant women are screened out during the visa interview process to prevent this from occurring. It's not perfect, in the case of individuals receiving multi-year visas, but those are only provided to individuals who have spent significant time in the US, or have family members who are citizens. Also, a baby born in the US to a non-US citizen parent does not automatically confer the parent with citizenship or permanent residency rights. In the case of "anchor babies", the child usually will not have the right to sponsor his parents for residency until they are 18.

zelos 11y ago

My first thought was that's going to have a big impact on the NHS and the care industry: "Metcalfe says there will be temporary exceptions for people with skills such as nursing, because there is a shortage in the U.K." Presumably central government has perfect information about the job market and will be able to make all the exceptions required in every industry?

jimrandomh 11y ago
Hmm? If the prevailing wages are low, then claims that there is a shortage are lies; if there were a genuine shortage, then any employer could guarantee they got as many as they wanted by offering a better wage, and would have already done so. The entire point of setting a wage cutoff is that it's an impartial standard, which can't be fooled by false rumors of shortages. Making exceptions would defeat the purpose, and it would be bad for the people in fields covered by those exceptions.
- adventured 11y ago
  > If the prevailing wages are low, then claims that there is a shortage are lies That's not necessarily correct. That's only the case in a vacuum, it falls apart in reality. For example, the US has routine shortages of farm field workers, in places like California, for picking etc. The wages are very low. It's a combination of nobody but illegal immigrants wanting to do the job for $10 / hour because it's a miserable job, and the business owner not being able to afford dramatically higher wages. It's a very persistent problem throughout California. In your theory, the wages could only be so low due to a vast over-supply of labor; there are in fact many other reasons an imbalance like that can occur. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/oct/25/decline-farm-labor-immigration-reform/ http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/oct/25/decline... http://www.wsj.com/articles/on-u-s-farms-fewer-hands-for-the-harvest-1439371802 http://www.wsj.com/articles/on-u-s-farms-fewer-hands-for-the... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/us/california-farmers-short-of-labor-and-patience.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/us/california-farmers-shor...
  - MisterBastahrd 11y ago

Someone1234 11y ago

£35K is not unreasonable. However if you ask me it should be £35K outside of London and £38.5K within. It far too easy to find a London job that pays £35K, even a lot of entry positions are in the high 20s (27-28K). That being said, while it is fine for workers, what the UK government have tried to do to people on family visas is very immoral. And has caused a lot of families to be separated. - To sponsor a spouse you must make: £18,600 - To sponsor a spouse and one child you must make: £22,400 (+£2,400 for each additional child). For reference the medium salary in the UK is around £22,044, the average is around £26,500 but neither tell the whole story, the UK has a wide salary disparity (in particular London Vs. elsewhere), and some charities project that the above rules preclude over a third of the population from bringing in their family. Can you imagine being separated from your spouse and child because you don't make enough? Even if that spouse is perfectly able to work? And the worst part is that a lot of people get caught in a poverty trap, where they don't make enough to pay for the skills that they would need to escape it. The problem is these types of rules come from London where wages are much higher and from very affluent individuals who came from money. They typically impact the poorest parts of the UK, but as they say "out of sight out of mind." Who cares if someone in north England cannot see their family for years... Certainly not Westminister.

edandersen 11y ago
To elaborate on the spousal visa issue: this only applies to non-EU spouses. As a British citizen, if you decide to marry a non-EU person, be prepared for hell when you try to get them in. However, Germans living in Britain can get their non-EU spouse in under the German rules. These policies are a result of the governments impossible, damaging pledge to get immigration "in the tens of thousands". What happens is that they look at a categorized list of immigration categories, realize they cannot do anything at all about EU immigration so double down on non-EU migration. Except the rules only apply to British citizens, because they are the only people they can apply these rules consistently to. Therefore we are left with the bizarre situation where it is easier for a French person in Britain to get their spouse in than a British person in Britain. There are British people effectively exiled because they went abroad when young, got married and had a kid and cannot return with their family because they don't have a guaranteed job lined up in the UK paying 18k+. The spouses income is deemed irrelevant under the rules, so even if your non-EU spouse can earn well above that, it doesn't matter. Ridiculous, borderline sick fiddling from the government that has severely damaged the family lives of tens of thousands of Britons.

nols 11y ago

In case anyone else wondered in light of the brexit talk, by foreigner they mean people outside the EU.

mabbo 11y ago

My sister works as a primary teacher in the London area. She's Canadian, and can't find a job in Ontario (we pay our teachers very well, so there's rarely a shortage). But the British don't pay their teachers very well, meaning that talented teachers like her who are working hard to contribute to Britain's future for fairly paltry wages would be kicked out of the country under this plan. If Britain can't meet it's demand for teachers at the wages it wants to offer without immigration, how do they expect to do it when they kick all the immigrants out? In essence, it's going to mean that British taxpayers have to foot the bill for the higher wages needed to get British teachers, or else some schools will simply have not enough teachers at all. It saddens me that such a fantastic country would be so short-sighted.

m0nty 11y ago
Just one other data point: a friend teaches IT and cannot find any permanent employment, it's all temporary gigs of three or six months. So in some respects, it might be like IT workers - they are there, but employers are ruling them out for inscrutable reasons, and demanding access to migrants instead.
xioxox 11y ago
Surely it's a good thing for British teachers to have higher wages? It would encourage British people to go into teaching, become educated and pass on that education. Britain has a problem with stagnant wages and concentration of wealth.
- vixen99 11y ago
  And it would seem in literacy and numeracy. 2013 OECD study on England's 16 to 24-year-olds: - 22nd for literacy and 21st for numeracy out of 24 countries.
namenotrequired 11y ago
One more data point: my friend is a doctor and has lived in the UK for about 9 years. She's terribly overworked and makes less than the stated amount.

ergothus 11y ago

So I've read multiple places that low-income immigrant labor does NOT reduce the demand for local workers, and results in a general increase in wages overall. (which would mean that most countries immigration policies are based on inaccurate fears) I'm totally willing to believe this. But I don't understand it. Is it that some portion of low-income local workers are qualified for more skilled work but there isn't the demand? Something else? Can someone give me the simplified version of events that explains this?

LaMarseillaise 11y ago
The income of low-income workers is spent back into the economy, allowing more people to be employed providing the goods that were purchased. This means it at least breaks even. Since it stands to reason that the individual immigrant will benefit from immigrating with a higher income, it is also stands to reason that this income being spent would be greater than if they had stayed where they were.
- ergothus 11y ago
  That's a net effect - more workers == more work getting done, but doesn't address the general fears of "taking OUR jobs" that I've seen debunked but never really understood. If I'm a minimum wage worker and you increase the pool of minimum wage workers - sure, more jobs will be filled, more money in the economy, but if _I_ can't get a job due to market saturation, my situation is worse regardless. Again, I'm FOR liberal immigration policies, in general, but I've been told the above fear doesn't play out (overall), and I don't understand why.
- tenpies 11y ago
  > The income of low-income workers is spent back into the economy I think this statement vastly underestimates how much money is remitted back home by foreign workers - even low-income workers. In Canada, we lose about 24 billion USD every year this way [1]. --- [1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/sending-remittances-low-dollar-1.3404145 http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/sending-remittances-low-doll...

roel_v 11y ago

The Netherlands already has this, for comparison. Some other EU countries too, I presume - though I'm not sure.

stegosaurus 11y ago

35K GBP is an odd number. To be honest, most numbers in the UK are. In London, with that salary, you will not be able to buy a studio apartment anywhere within commuting distance of the centre. You'd need to triple it to even think about owning an actual home. In many cities in the north, 35K will get you a home, in cash, in <5 years. How does that work, then? Do we deport people who fully pay off homes and retire because they're not earning 35K? Very odd. Frankly, most of the UK's capital/income thresholds are odd for this exact reason. They end up being piffling amounts in the South East and obscene values in the North.

mschuster91 11y ago

How about the following: 1) All countries drop their borders. 2) All countries begin taxing especially international companies (Amazon, Apple!) fairly and impose sanctions upon countries currently acting as tax heavens. Also, criminally obtained and stashed profits e.g. of (former) dictators or corrupt officials, gets seized and redistributed. 3) Rich(er) countries use this money to actually improve the conditions in the countries where migration originates, no matter if due to poorness, wars, climate change etc. As a planet we cannot longer extract and privatize profits from poor regions and people. It is simply not sustainable (and never has been, tbh).

SixSigma 11y ago
> All countries begin taxing especially international companies (Amazon, Apple!) fairly and impose sanctions upon countries currently acting as tax heavens. And who will start this particular ball rolling. There are tax havens in the US - Delaware, UK - London and plenty of other places
- DrScump 11y ago
  Apple's primary tax havens are overseas, with Ireland being a key one (Apple pioneered the so-called "Double Irish" dodge, laundering profits through Ireland incentives twice.)

rahelzer 11y ago

Great idea. But why limit it to just Foreign workers? Just think how Uber they would be if they would just encourage anybody to use their EU passport and move to Elbonia if they don't pull down $50k.

randyrand 11y ago

"Come April, she will very likely have to leave her British life partner" If I was in that position I would push for a green card marrige. Or perhaps just a normal marrige? not familiar with the dynamics of a life partnership.

foldr 11y ago
Being married to your partner doesn't make much difference with respect to British immigration law. It just makes it somewhat easier to show that you really are in a relationship with someone. If she applies for a new visa on the basis that she has a partner who's a British citizen, then her partner will have to meet the income requirement regardless of whether they're married or not.