No visas for low-skilled workers, UK government says

Sounds like they took a lot of inspiration from Japan, where they have a &quot;Highly Skilled Professionals&quot; visa track with points for similar things, with the limit also being 70.<p>For Japan, you still need to fulfill the requirements for e.g. normal work visa, but you get perks like preferential handling, shorter timed to permanent residency and getting visa for dependents.<p>On another note, this is going to suck for &quot;low-skilled&quot; brits who want to move around the EU as I assume EU put some symmetry to this.

I lived for several years in the UK and it’s weird to think that nowadays I wouldn’t be able to do so.<p>I first moved there to study a MSc degree, which I could afford because EU students paid the same fees as the British (and those fees were significantly lower then). Some time later, I came back to the UK because my partner was doing EU-funded research at a British university, while I continued working for an EU company remotely.<p>I’m aware that mine is not the stereotypical immigrant experience, but I did meet a lot of Europeans that were similarly spending their best years in the UK.<p>The British had something precious until not long ago: a working welfare state, a welcoming society, and an influx of enthusiastic citizens from all across the EU. It’s sad that they are throwing it all away.

Brexit supporters talked about creating a &#x27;Singapore-on-Thames&#x27;. But in Singapore all construction work is performed by cheap, low-skilled men from South India who are given temporary work visas. So it seems that Britain is actually going in the opposite direction to Singapore in this regard.

UK is going to be in serious trouble because of this.<p>(1) They already had a major shortage for low skilled workers to assist in agriculture and social care. And yes they have tried to raise wages and encourage UK applicants with little success. Given the lack of consultation with the agriculture industry I am guessing they are just going to let it wither and die.<p>(2) Given how poorly the Home Office has treated EU citizens wanting to remain in the UK as well as scandals such as Windrush I can&#x27;t imagine too many people trusting them to look after you over the long term.

Canada and especially Québec should do this too. Québec has a lottery system for visas. First come first serve. Rest of Canada has a points based system but is being played by low skilled workers.

<i>No visas for low-skilled workers, UK government says</i><p>No takers from the UK nationals for low-paid jobs, UK workers say.<p>Country dies from lack of telephone handset sanitizers.

&quot;People wanting to come to the UK from outside the EU will find rules are being relaxed&quot;<p>Yes because non EU labour tend to have fewer enforceable rights. I don&#x27;t think this is about raising any thresholds, its more the opposite lowering the barrier for exploitation of low skilled non EU labour. At least in a business&#x2F;financial sense.

The UK now fines firms for &quot;damaging online content&quot;. It holds a whistleblower that uncovered crimes of war in prison under conditions that are a dangerous to said inmates life.<p>I am just glad they left the EU. The problems with their government can only be solved by the British themselves and the EU doesn&#x27;t help here, nor would I want any of these developments jumping over to other countries.<p>The need for low skilled workers is probably just for exploitation purposes. That seems to be the case in most instances. For now, the British and other EU countries are better off separated. Politicians have to answer the voters and they should have the last word on any visa or immigration debate.

Let&#x27;s see what happens at next year&#x27;s harvest.<p>Farmers in the UK typically hire hundreds of thousands of seasonal unskilled labourers, with many crops (fruit, asparagus) having no mechanised harvest option.<p>Farmers have already been struggling with shortfalls since the vote to leave the EU but this is going to kick them over the cliff edge. Tories get a lot of financial support from these land owners. Can&#x27;t imagine they&#x27;ll be too happy if their income rots away in a field.

This will undoubtly cause a shortage in low skilled jobs which will increase their demand and therefore you will see a salary spike for those roles and maybe just maybe British natives actually bothering to take up the jobs they never wanted to do.

I wonder what percentage of these unskilled-jobs could be replaced by robots, though not all and in many cases, the cost, maintenance and running of a robot will not always be cheaper.

Of course, the tier 2 system is already set up like this. The whole &quot;points-based&quot; talking point was always a canard. There&#x27;s not a meaningful change (yet)

I was just listening to Esther Duflo&#x27;s talk. She addresses the issue of low-skilled immigrants.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=i1pZfFY132Q" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=i1pZfFY132Q</a><p>I think she lacks nuance and leaves little room for debate, but still worth listening.<p>Also we may not like it, but the UK is a democracy and the xenophobic sentiment of the population has to be taken into account in designing immigration laws. It seems politicians have failed at convincing voters that low-skilled immigration is actually good for them.

&gt; all migrants will only be entitled to access income-related benefits<p>Can someone from the UK chime in and explain those?

This seems in-line with their motive for brexit - “UK first”<p>It’s not really a surprise....

UK citizen here. &quot;High-skilled&quot; worker, left the UK. Policies like this do not make me want to return.

Powerful economies plundering the world of intellectual resources is both a shame on one hand and an inevitability on the other. Unfortunately there is no perfect immigration system and competition between nations for resources makes these type of policies attractive.

No problem with the actual best and brightest as long as they are paid in the 90th percentile of market wages.<p><i>edit: based on the downvotes there&#x27;s a significant number of HN participants who believe that the best either isn&#x27;t the top 10% or fewer, or the best shouldn&#x27;t be paid for their skills. Interesting.</i>

Well, I know which way this is going to go. The pawns who built the structure of this economic game are the ones being cleared; and every chess player knows what happens when you run out of pawns.