Unskilled jobs need Professional People
Unskilled jobs need Professional People
This week we have received the news we have all been waiting for! Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine has received MHRA approval, paving the way for mass vaccination. Life returning to a semblance of normality is on the horizon. We will be back in the bars and restaurants we love and enjoying life as we like it hopefully by the spring.
Something else was announced this week which is going to have a big impact on us. The government has announced the details of the UK’s post Brexit points based immigration system. According to the reports it’s user friendly and straightforward which it is, as long as anyone wanting to come to the UK has a PhD and a job offer. As expected, there is no place in the UK for unskilled workers who want to come here to seek the opportunity of a better life or even to just experience life in the UK.
Really simple and welcoming conditions to come to the UK, the epicentre of the British Empire and arguably the catalyst for international trade and the Global economy of today. Without getting too political I think it would be remiss to ignore the fact that it was the British who first started taking people from the lands of their forefathers and brought them here as our purpose saw fit. (Ok that was a bit political).
The basis for these conditions is to restrict the number of immigrants coming into the UK while upskilling the UK workforce. We want the cream of the foreign crop you could say.
Personally, I find this policy and the new rules for immigration unfair at best, xenophobic at worst (I’m not saying I’m anti Brexit or pro Brexit, just questioning the post Brexit immigration policy). It is also going to leave us with a BIG problem and that is we need unskilled foreign workers.
Even if a role is defined as unskilled, we still need people who are professional to fill these jobs. To be professional is to demonstrate commitment to effective performance in a given job. Commitment and confidence, responsibility and dependability, honesty and professional presence are central professional characteristics. Without immigrant workers we will face a major hole in the supply of ‘unskilled’ but professional workers which large swathes of our economy rely upon.
So I suppose the key question is once the vaccines are rolled out and Covid-19 starts to fade out and become a thing of the past, who is going to serve us in the bars and restaurants we love, who is going to keep the shopping centres clean and who’s going to make sure we get our delivery the next day? There are simply not enough professional people willing to do the unskilled jobs to keep up with the demand as it is, let alone once we shut the door and tell them they’re not welcome.
Let’s hope the policy makers have something up their sleeves they’ve not told us about, otherwise it’s unlikely your new outfit will turn up in time for that table you’ve booked at the self-service restaurant.
Dan Broady
Initial Recruitment Limited
