So what's Labour's strategy on migration?
Well, Yvette Cooper has high-skilled migrants in her sights as she wonders if skill shortages in key sectors like IT & engineering might be filled in different ways....
Well, the answer is two fold:
* Get these firms to invest in training!
* Get them to offer better work conditions.
But in the end for the young (at least) being part of a global labour markets may still offer more advantages than disadvantages for the UK?
As someone in that sector, I think there are a number of key problems, specifically around the educational side. Computer Science is the degree course most people do, yet what people really want is Computer Engineers.
It's very much like trying to have Physics graduates roll into an Electronic Engineering job. They might posses the underlying knowledge in theory, but they lack any of the practical skills.
@intrbiz @ChrisMayLA6 Indeed, I have encountered many IT professionals, employed as expensive consultants, who could neither write software nor the documentation to go with it.
@intrbiz
A high skill ( US PhD bioinformatics) friend and and I were recently in final round interviews to become expats in the Oxford area (I was coming from Finland). We both hit a hard wall on salaries in the 75k EUR range. I was getting that in Finland already.
I doubt the problem is poor advertising for desired skill sets.
@ChrisMayLA6
@dnavinci @intrbiz @ChrisMayLA6 Indeed.
An experienced software developer can earn maybe £35-£45k around Cardiff/Bristol. Here in 🇨🇭 a typical salary is CHF 120-140k, (£110-125k). Sure, the cost of living is significantly higher, but so is the quality of life (& healthcare), plus working conditions are often much better.
🇨🇭 has freedom of movement, so any 🇪🇺 citizen can come and work here. If you're a smart 🇪🇺 IT graduate looking for a job abroad, UK is hardly going to be your first choice, is it?
Yes, I would agree pay is also behind where is needs to be. Especially the gulf between UK and US pay for the industry.
@intrbiz
Yeah, I'm saying it's behind even Finland.
@ChrisMayLA6
@intrbiz @ChrisMayLA6 @intrbiz @ChrisMayLA6 Yep, as formerly the unfortunate mentor of computer science grads who can barely boot a Linux server, don't know what a web stack is, and needed hand holding through even the most routine procedures, CS courses might be felt to lack practicality. On the other hand, post 1992s do attempt skills transfer but it's hopeless - someone I know was seduced by a whacking pay offer to teaching CS in a post 1992 where, in 2012, she found they were only teaching dreamweaver and no CMS codebases. Another time we had some 3rd year baffled students from another post 1992 in 2015 on a research collab trying to skin a Hadoop DB with dreamweaver - under supervision from their lecturer. No one had time to teach them non relational DBs and python. I've been out of it for a few years but bet they aren't studying machine learning and python now either. Possibly more theory should move to postgrad with knowledge of contemporary firmware, codebases, systems, protocols, and stacks more foregrounded at undergrad so that CS graduates don't need their hands held extensively for months when they're chucked into the fray totally unprepared? Although that would require HE to change quite a lot. There might be something to be said for higher skills undergrad courses buying in skills transfer for technical skills that go out of date quickly for career academics to complement a narrower provision of research oriented academic BSc. Otherwise if you're mainly pointing and clicking admin interfaces you would need software or platform training that can be delivered online. Needless to say all HE courses should incorporate higher level critical thinking and cultural engagement, I'm not arguing for skill mills - just a blend of skills for entering working life with the critical thinking and cultural engagement that's vital to any level of education (should not be the sole preserve of HE). Yeah it would stratify skills and theory but institutional education is basically in the business of stratification anyway. Otherwise we're in a whole other discussion of what education *should* be.
@ChrisMayLA6
Plus lots of (big) companies have got very used to paying large consultancies for poor outcomes, mostly driven by perceived cost savings per head on paper.
Taking a serious look at the internal company transfer visas would not be stupid, people get treated badly for capitalists gains.