Swinney says Scottish government will sponsor visas for foreign care workers. The FM said it was unfair Scotland’s older people had to “pay the price for Westminster’s prejudice”, and that his devolved government would sponsor visa applications for migrant workers needed to staff care homes.

by bottish

22 comments

  2. What are the reasons we can’t train locals to do the job?

    Is it because we’re running out of young people because nobody’s having kids? If foreigners are integrating successfully into our culture then why would we assume they’re going to have children if the locals aren’t?

    Is it because the pay and benefits are so low that only third world people see it as a viable career? Maybe we should fix that instead of dragging the value of labour down?

    Is it because there aren’t enough training and outreach programs to bring our own population into the work place? Maybe we should solve that before importing more people?

  3. Nice idea, but will it work, or be popular? I can see the need argument, care work is not popular field to go into. But still, a lot of people won’t like this.

    Furthermore, why it needs to be specifically Scottish visa, also ignoring the vast pool of migrant workers England gets. England gets the lions share of migrants to the UK, why aren’t they coming to Scotland anyway, or more English people? Most of Scotland has the advantage that a care worker can afford to pay a mortgage, unlike most of England. That alone should be a massive sell.

  4. Two seconds and I see the great white replacement conspiracy theory uggggghhhhh

  5. Could also try cutting taxes as an incentive for people already in the UK to move and take up these jobs, but that’s anathema to them of course

  6. Perhaps care homes should be forced to pay something approaching a fair wage for a demanding and often unpleasant job rather than importing workers from abroad?

  7. It’s crazy why it’s not on the list of visa jobs like a nurse. We’re in vital need of care workers and people from the UK don’t want to do the job. I know from experience that a lot of the UK staff I have had are lazy and look at their phones most of the time. The care companies don’t pay high wages and can’t find staff. More people than ever are needing care workers

  8. Considering in the UK we currently have drastically out of control immigration figures but they all want to live in England, this will achieve the grand total of fuckall.

  9. These jobs pay barely over the minimum wage – that’s why people won’t do it. It should be paid more.

    What should happen in a labour shortage is that wages go up and profits are squeezed – what Swinney seems to wanting to do is protect the profits of the care home owners at the expense of voters

  10. This is a good move.

    Another brownie point from me SNP.

    The race is on between you and Green.

  11. The plain fact is that there are some jobs which British people are reluctant to do, or even train for. In Care work, as in agricultural work, while wages may be a barrier, even when wages are raised to a decent level British workers simply will not apply for these positions in sufficient numbers. Being of an age where the quality of care for the elderly may become a pressing issue, I would far rather be looked after by staff who have freely chosen to do the job than by people, of whatever background, who have been strong-armed, financially or otherwise, into reluctantly turning up to make a half hearted pretence of doing it. Farmers are already having to pay many thousands of pounds in visa fees to get skilled and motivated staff from other countries, forcing care facilities to go down that route will drive them to shut the doors.

  12. It’s nothing new bringing in people from other countries to do jobs the local population doesn’t want to do. Care homes *are not* an easy job by any means, I believe recently there was a big upset with abuse being uncovered in a large care home, simply because there wasn’t enough staff/good staff.

  13. Thats great im sure auld aggie will be thrilled with her new and improved snp carer, you would think that the scottish national party would want more jobs for scottish people and with about 35-40% of working age people not working there would be plenty of them to train up

  15. Be more like it if he had a plan to force those who are economically inactive to work

  16. Absolute state of everyone here unironically falling for the “spooky immigrants stole your jobs and made your wages shite” nonsense while the rich folk at the top piss themselves laughing that you fell for it.

  17. He also said that Labour was stopping the sponsorship and for those already here, now those care workers can work in the knowledge that the Labour ICE team will not be coming for them

  18. At this point I think this is a gamble from Swinney. With the way things are going this might not be a popular policy by next May. And a lot of the older SNP lot are quite socially conservative and not that keen on immigration anyway.

  19. Fuck off, make them pay higher wages so we get local people that actually care in the job.

  20. To clarify, but I think it may end up being drowned out, this is not to bring in new workers from abroad; this is support workers who came to work in the social care sector in the UK but lost their jobs after their employers lost their visa sponsor licence to come to Scotland and work here.

    >“This will support international social care workers already in the UK who have lost their social care jobs as a result of their employer losing their visa sponsor licence, to come to Scotland and contribute their valuable skills to our social care sector.”

    [https://www.gov.scot/news/protecting-the-social-care-workforce-2/](https://www.gov.scot/news/protecting-the-social-care-workforce-2/)

  21. Setting aside the topics of immigration, labor exploitation, etc. The Grauniad [and this thread] has failed to identify the mechanism by which ScotGov will sponsor/enable care worker immigrant labor.

    Skilled Work visa categories are the preserve of UKGOV. Earlier this year Care Workers were dropped from the SW visa programme:

    [www.davidsonmorris.com/health-and-care-visa/](http://www.davidsonmorris.com/health-and-care-visa/)

    An entity – whether public or private – can only sponsor where the legal and/or procedural means to do so exists. And it no longer does when it comes to CWs. I suspect, therefore, that Swinney is once again chatting shit and the usual suspects are lapping it up unquestionably.

  22. The solution to the care crisis isn’t in allowing the private part of the sector to suppress its wages and fill in the gaps with sponsored visas.

    There’s surely a way to regulate the sector in a devolved context where part of the regulation embeds a pay floor that’s respective of the work care workers do

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