Labour has announced plans to prioritize British workers and their upskilling while pledging a labour government would reduce immigration. The reality is, training British staff is only part of the picture. Britain needs foreign labour and skills. Experience counts. It really does.
Yvette Cooper said:
“We think that migration should come down. And that’s the plan that Keir is setting out in order to bring net migration down. It has trebled in the last five years under the Conservatives. And right at the heart of that is a big increase in work migration.”
The shadow home secretary says there has been a “fundamental failure to tackle skills shortages” and to deal with problems in the labour market.
“That’s why we are setting out new plans, which will mean that training and workforce plans are triggered where there are high levels of overseas recruitment.”
Experience counts
Politicians should speak to industry experts before embarking on bold strategies. Would their plan be feasible in the reality of the business sector? This has already been one of the major flaws of the current Brexit Trade and Co-operation agreement. Negotiators had no clue how professionals worked, be that creatives or engineers, especially freelancers.
“Just to give you one example, which to me sums it up, is engineering apprenticeships have halved and engineering visas have doubled. And that is because we’ve had a long-term failure under the Conservatives on both the economy and on migration”. (Yvette Cooper)
So many large companies can and do bring talented foreign staff to work in the UK. They are vital for the evolution of services provided to the public. I have worked with superb senior software developers from India who have now made the UK their home. Their families are still based in India, not partners and children who are living with them, but elderly parents. Living in Britain has its downside. It’s not possible to go home to see the family for the weekend. Long Summer holidays to visit grandparents are on the agenda once a year or every few years. These people work long hours for top IT consultancies who serve the British public sector and industries. The Labour Party should acknowledge that before it considers plans to try to close the door to other similar expe
When a company chooses a candidate, be that for a permanent role or freelance project, managers look at both training and experience. While we would hope an apprentice will get more experience as time goes by, this can take many years. Without that experience, juniors can make mistakes. A team needs a good balance between experienced and less experienced colleagues to function.
Technology can evolve quickly, especially software. The focus may be more on projects done only in the last three to five years when a team recruits, but experience in older technologies does matter.
An ability to code is not enough in this industry in many roles, especially within consulting. We do not work in a technical vacuum. Staff need to consider whether the code implements functional requirements correctly and question these requirements where there are doubts. Then there is the testing. It is possible to coach junior staff on the job, but it does slow team velocity until the junior speeds up. Engineering projects which are extremely urgent or in trouble, which simply cannot wait, would be forced to recruit experienced candidates who can hit the ground running. Those candidates may be outside of the UK.
Some companies require experience in a particular sector such as banking or telecoms as a pre-requisite. This can take years to build up.
Starmer should also remember that British people who once worked further afield in Europe brought their experience gained on niche European projects back to the UK to train up British staff. The financial losses we have suffered from our position outside of the single market are more obvious, but sadly it may not have dawned on the Labour Party how important the value of skills exchange is within many skills shortage areas. For me personally, that knowledge exchange brought challenges, sparked innovation and much satisfaction when I was able to put it to the service of important home based projects and to up skill junior staff. I and many like me hope we built not only software but substantial parts of the careers of those younger people.
Engineering apprenticeships
Engineering apprenticeships are only part of it and Labour is considering only scenarios where there is an acute need for staff. Staff have to get their toes wet somewhere. It would be an advantage to have more qualified staff ready to fill vital roles when a need arises.
We have to look more widely at this problem. Can a British company, which is not flourishing, afford to even consider employing staff? The answer to that is a firm no. The whole Brexit fiasco for IT services professionals put the lid on me ever doing that. I am not alone here. Some businesses even closed due to the scanty provision in the TCA.
Brexit has brought with it so much uncertainty; firms tighten the purse strings and do not consider hiring trainees or experienced candidates. Inward investment into the UK has also been reduced as firms choose to locate European offices elsewhere. The UK was once the favoured location for international firms. Brexit has proved profitable for the Dutch who have won a lot of the inward investment and tax revenues which would have been headed for British soil. This inevitably means that if we as a country have less investment and businesses, resulting job opportunities which would have come with that investment are not there. Those firms might have offered British juniors experience which would turn them into seasoned professionals.
European staff also left us in sectors like the NHS and academia. In turn, British staff, including trainees, will not benefit from their experience. The ONS demonstrated that immigration from outside of Europe increased a lot post Brexit.
Some support for training, business and job seekers has vanished
British regions, which were considered poorer like our North East, benefitted from the European Social Fund (EUSF). The EUSF provided funding at local colleges for subjects in which a skills shortage was present.
I benefitted from sponsored night classes in programming at Newcastle College when I decided to try IT as a career possibility. City and Guilds courses in IT, building and plumbing were all funded for those who were students or were on low incomes. This was part of our EU membership fee. Considering that fee cost the average British citizen about £26 per year, that was money well spent.
There’s an idea for labour: sponsor some night classes in skills shortage areas so those who are already in another job and might like to cross train can get a taster of a new technical career. However, how are these initiatives going to be funded?
The EU Regional Development Fund, which was available to projects right up to the end of 2023, was another source of support which sponsored many programmes for job seekers and businesses. The ERDF was intended both for private recipients and public sector bodies.
For example, Durham university received £250,000 from the ERDF to develop and deliver business support for local residents.
During the final European funding period for the UK, Sunderland City Council benefitted from direct grant awards of over £10mn.
Sunderland Community Led Local Development received £900,000 to help challenged job seekers and business startups. Growing businesses employ trainees. What goes around comes around.
The migration argument
ONS statistics show post-Brexit Britain under the Tories failed to stop an increase in immigration to the UK.
People smugglers are well aware that the UK is no longer privy to the facilities of the Dublin Convention, by which migrants may be returned to their first safe country of entry, which is only available to members of the European Union. Paradoxically, when Britain left the European Union, which had been blamed for huge increases in migration by Farage and co. the figures jumped.
As I argued previously using information from Femi Oluwule’s discussion with Farage on LBC, it would be easy for a government to be inside the single market and control migration from Europe under article 7 of the citizens’ directive. Any employees pay income tax here and are not a burden on the state. They in turn enrich us with their knowledge.
Remote workers help
Are skills shortages really the only problem? Many professionals have been unable to resume full time work due to Long Covid. Fatigue makes a normal work day impossible. Some people now choose to work only remotely to minimize infection risks.
Another common side effect of Covid is neutropenia, where the immune system does not work properly. It can resolve in time but not always. The condition can persist. Patients are advised to avoid public transport if possible and crowded locations. Those with severe neutropenia qualify for registration as disabled. The Tory government pushed to remove benefits and force people to return to work; here is Labour’s chance to show it can be supportive for these members of society who may well have the skills, talent and enthusiasm to re-skill or re-enter the workforce using experience they already have.
So many businesses and employees demonstrated they could work fully remotely when the pandemic hit. There are families who need to care for children or elderly relatives; working remotely with flexible hours can help them to stay in the job market, balancing out work and personal commitments. Such a juggling act may be rendered impossible if a long commute to an office would be part of that daily routine. Energy and time spent commuting can be better employed on the job via the virtual workspace.
Increasing flexibility for workers by incorporating virtual workers into teams as much as possible not only helps employees out. It can increase the potential catchment area of talented staff for these roles which might not be possible to fill in a particular region where an employer insists on work onsite or a hybrid model.
Britain centres around business hubs in the South East, especially London, and other larger cities. It does not have to be that way.
Jacob Rees Mogg argued that workers should return to the office, especially civil servants after the worst of the pandemic was ‘over’. (The pandemic might not be over for many people with the aforementioned medical conditions). This physical return to the office is not always necessary. There has been a sense that if the workers are not onsite, they are potentially skiving and not giving their all.
Far from it. Looking at my own industry, it is much more productive to put energy wasted on long commutes or business travel into the particular project. Even when there is a dreadful bug to solve at the office, hunger pangs at about 8pm may set in, forcing us to seek food. Not always easy if you are on an industrial estate in the middle of nowhere. Some companies will not allow staff to remain onsite after 8pm and staff are warned by security guards on their evening rounds to leave. Working from home on crucial deliverables means it is easy to grab your tea and then continue until late at night if need be. On many occasions, I’ve reconvened with colleagues and we’ve gone on until 10 or 11 pm, ‘moonlighting’ for the sake of a sprint or a puzzle we needed to solve.
The next government could look at pooling skills and promoting remote work in sectors which allow it. This may allow firms to find talented staff in our regions.
Specific sectors may not be able to work with staff who are operating remotely from outside of the UK if the projects have a high level of security. However, there are many sectors where that would not be an issue. Remote work and reassurances from the EU regarding data equivalence allow workers based there to work together on British projects without actually migrating to the UK. This would not impact migration figures. In fact, the government could provide business support to seek (remote) talent in Europe and elsewhere bearing in mind it may be easier to work together with teams in a similar time zones if possible. The British government and the EU could work together to facilitate that virtual market.
Upskilling British workers is great, but the next government should keep an open mind about other options on the table. Otherwise, the plan risks becoming another nationalistic electoral sound bite.
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