British firms choose foreign workers over local applicants

Photo by Michel Bednarek on ShutterStock

More and more British companies are choosing to hire competent and skilled foreign workers instead of young English applicants.

According to a study by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), foreign employees are more skilled and more qualified for more jobs compared to most of the British workforce.

The lack of skills of the younger British population is attributed to their decision to leave school without fully developed arithmetic skills. These are the same young adults who believe that they are ‘too good’ for most blue-collared jobs.

The delusion of being too good for manual labor stems from the hope handed out by various reality shows and talent competitions. The said programs have instilled in the young peoples’ minds that they can be ‘famous in five minutes.’

One NIESR respondent said, ‘Everyone has been given this weight of expectation that they can do whatever they want and they can succeed in doing whatever they want. They haven’t necessarily been given the skills to do it so, if something like manual work comes along, people think they are too good for it, they should be doing something else. We have a generation coming through who look very much at, we are going to start at the top, it’s that X factor, we can be famous in five minutes.’

Researchers interviewed several management executives of some British companies and ended up recording varying complaints about the deteriorating work ethic of younger British workers, saying that the ‘indigenous population are not putting themselves forward and committing themselves to work’. Executives said that young people ‘need to change their behavior and their outlook’ towards the jobs being offered to them.

On the other end of the spectrum is a study that says more and more companies proved to be more efficient after hiring skilled foreign workers. This efficiency translated to better income and eventually the opportunity to expand their businesses.

 ‘We hear a lot about public opinion and concern about migration, but our findings suggest that the need for skilled migration is more widely accepted than is often believed. People enjoy working alongside migrants and feel they personally benefit in terms of their own skills and the services they are able to provide,’ said Heather Rolfe, one of the writers of the said study.

Some companies said that the foreign workers are compelling British nationals to work on their “employability” and to ‘up their game’ especially in the fields of health and medicine, architecture, banking, and most graduate-level jobs.

With report form Matt Chorley, Mailonline