Major shortage of British builders revealed as Labour minister admits we can’t just rely on migrant workforce

18 comments

1. Sounds good, but would I have to accept the new rock-bottom immigrant driven wage, or could I charge an appropriate amount for an in demand job? Because I have an idea of which is expected.

2. Years of encouraging kids to go to university for graduate jobs that don’t exist over skilled trades which are in short supply. The problem started years ago.

3. The main reasons are because of Brexit and immigration rules stopping them from bringing in cheap labour, companies unwilling to train and give apprenticeships and yes the building can’t be outsourced to another country to build.

4. People don’t want immigrant. 

   People want houses. 

   We don’t have the builders to build the houses. 

   But we don’t want immigrants…. 

   The conversation on Immigrant workforces has been muddled on purpose, with several news stations, papers and online spaces mixing up working migrants, lifestyle migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and illegal immigrants. 

   There is a concerted effort to make migrants of all types the enemy of the state by bundling the lot together to inflate numbers and make it seem we are being invaded. 

    And people are turning too… A spokesman for a company that helps the ultra rich become economic migrants to move and hide their money and not pay taxes… (Nomad Capitalists, look at who keeps getting paid to speak at their live events and podcasts) 

   Job Centres should become Training Centres, I had to fight my job centre to get FLT training that I knew was available and free but the jobcenter wouldn’t sign off on, and now – 10 years later – my life has improved greatly thanks to a unionised job in a major company, which I would not of got without that training. 

   The shit idea of ‘work for Poundland for free’ should of been ‘Learn bricklaying’ ‘learn Plumbing’ ‘learn to be a Sparky’ etc etc 

   Let’s use working migrants now not just to build our buildings, but their tax to get the youth trained to continue the building effort. 

   It needs to start NOW, we need apprenticeships ready, we need a building boom. 

   Housing availability and costs is a core, CORE reason for quite a few of societies problems. 

    BritMonkey’s ‘The Housing Crisis Is A Everything Problem.’  https://youtu.be/4ZxzBcxB7Zc?si=6ekUrqym16pdXD0p 

    Tom Nicholas’s ‘How Britain (almost) solved the housing problem’s https://youtu.be/jZpLiJdIGbs?si=pT4AvMsfuPZAm1ZN

5. This is a direct consequence of Thatcher’s policies when she torpedoed traditional apprenticeships. Led to a huge reduction in apprenticeships through the 90s which inevitably led to some skills gaps too. The modern apprenticeship scheme helped to plug some of these shortages and gaps but the global recession in 2008 hit the construction industry hard. My college went from having four full classes of apprentices to just one half full class when I started my first year apprenticeship. That carried on for a few years too but has recovered somewhat with the college now running two or three full classes each year depending on apprentice numbers.

   You also have the added pressure (in my industry at least – electrical) of domestic work not paying as well as commercial, industrial, or controls so many sparkies actively avoid doing domestic installs, especially with so many of them being price work. It’s also because many domestic installs are paid this way that the quality of install in new housing is often found wanting and usually requires lots of snagging works.

6. They “admit” that do they? Did they ever deny it or is this just another attempt to make it look like they have hidden something or have u turned?

7. I employ apprentice carpenters and as it’s starts right now the start on 68 pound a day
   I pay for their day at college, tools, insurance, time out to teach, mistakes and PPE
   It’s an expensive business training a 16 yr old only for them to bail out at 18 or 19 for the promise of greener pastures.
   Believe me I try to keep my pastures green as well.
   I won’t stop because I really enjoy doing it and live to see them develop.
   However you ask a customer to pay 15 pound an hour (I have to try to make a little something on them!!) for a 16 yr old to stand and watch (some days )

   Forgot holiday pay 4 weeks they produce nothing
   Apologies in advance for gramma/punctuation.

8. My cousin is training as a builder in Scotland on a Scottish training course which for some reason will be sending him to Germany next year for several months to complete his training and build houses in Germany.

   So that’s a bit weird that we can’t do the whole training builders thing in the UK.

   Also German bricklayers get paid about 50% more than UK bricklayers and the kid loves Europe so I can easily see him trying to remain there when he finishes his training rather than coming back to this country for way less money.

9. A problem that can be traced back to Thatcher when corporations decided it was cheaper to buy in trained labour rather than run their own expensive apprenticeships and training schemes. When I left school you not only didn’t pay for training, you received a wage while you were doing it and had a guaranteed job once you finished. All the employer asked in return was that if you left within three years you had to pay back the training fees.

10. I’ve been in the construction industry all my working life. I was earning 8 times more money 35 years ago than I do now.

11. A complete over saturation of universities and a huge stigma of trade/vocational jobs created this.

    We have too many universities, many of which are not high quality and cause young people to go in huge debt for little gain.

    In Australia, the trades are respected and to an extent viewed as pretty desirable. Tradie culture is pretty big and it’s a fantastic thing – we would do well to encourage more young people to go into these lines of work – god knows they could earn much better money than many desk jobs!

12. Builders don’t want to be in the game anymore… I wonder why.. Diesel vans getting taxed into the ground, tool/van theft through the room, wages driven down for years through imported labour, Ulez/congestion charge going into London where you can actually earn decent money, Health and safety going overboard and making jobs harder and more awkward than they need to be, entry cost into the trade is extremely high when you factor van/tools/insurance etc before you even start earning..that’s just afew off the top of my head.

13. Sounds like an opportunity to train a bunch of those out of work youths to earn a living, learn a skill

14. But why isn’t a migrant workforce being put to work..? Alternatively they could let people in based on their willingness TO work rather than just letting anyone walk in then trying to figure out what to do.

15. Similar thing happening to doctors

    NHS relies on migrant doctors and they drive the locum wage down

16. I am in my 40s and was learning to maintain sewing machines for quite low pay. I was told I was probably the one of youngest in the country doing it , no formal training ….

    I changed jobs as it was an extremely badly run place and left me untrained dealing with machines I had zero experience on . Now I do less for me to pay 🙃

    Not a small company, may I add …..

17. Is it worth getting into a trade like construction now? Very poorly motivated and paid TV professional losing my job soon in a dying industry

18. More money for us 😂 tradesman will inherent the earth, as the university educated flip our burgers. Up the tools ⚒️!

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