Immigration

[Cendrillon]

[quote user="Cendrillon"][quote user="Russethouse"]

It had several strands, they followed real people, one a girl from Poland I think, coming to work in Dorset - comments from the owner before hand about the difficuly of recruiting local staff who actually wanted to work and get involved. A taxi driver being taught about driving taxi's in Plymouth - but he was in an Eastern Block country - how he wanted to invest in his family, how they would follow him etc, and then a charity worker in Calais ( I think) helping people trying to get across - not actually with the crossing, but with living, food etc beforehand

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The girl was from Estonia and wanted to spread her wings and see new places so ended up working for a hotel at Lyme Regis there were a lot of Polish staff working there too. I thought the school in Romania for drivers to learn to become taxi drivers in Plymouth was very interesting. Most of all I was impressed at their good level of spoken (written as well) English. All in all it provided an interesting insight.

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The program last night was all about people (Kurds, Afghanis etc) in France who were waiting to get to England. Next week will be more of a follow-up to the first program so I think we will see how the man from Romania gets on in Plymouth and more about the hotel worker girl from Estonia.

[Russethouse]

I watched it last night - what struck me is how so many people want to come to the Uk for opportunities to earn a decent living, where do these so called benefit scroungers come from ?

[YCCMB]

There was an interesting item on Radio 4 in the series "The Investigation" a few weeks ago which I downloaded and played to my ESOL class. It was actually discussing how many Polish people currently (or previously) working in the UK are now going back. Not only this, but it was examining the potential harm which will be inflicted on the UK economy (like it needs more harm[:)]) when they do. It was very interesting to hear just how many different industry sectors have scaled up their operations, invested in growth and chosen to keep production in the UK (rather than relocate offshore) on the back of having access to a ready supply of Polish labour to draw on.

Now that Polish companies are beginning to pay competitive salaries in order to attract people back from overseas, Poles are beginning to return home in increasing numbers. Some Polish companies have increased salaries by up to 26% in the recent past, and it's making returning to Poland increasingly attractive.

I probably know personally, or have met on a regular basis, about 300 Poles over the past 3 years. I have yet to meet one who was unemployed. I have also yet to meet one who was working illegally. I am sure that both types must exist, but I suspect they're a small minority. I even know one Pole who came to the UK, spent a few months driving a forklift truck in a Tesco distribution centre, and when that temporary job ended, found himself another job as a sushi chef!!!!! If that isn't resourceful I don't know what is.

As an aside. I did a short version of the "Life in  the UK" test a few weeks ago with another of my classes, just for fun. None of the students has any intention of applying for citizenship, nor had any of them seen or done the test before. Two of them scored only one point less than me (I did it too) and I got 4 questions wrong, and correctly guessed at least 3 or 4 others.

 

 

[Iceni]

[quote user="Russethouse"]I watched it last night - what struck me is how so many people want to come to the Uk for opportunities to earn a decent living, where do these so called benefit scroungers come from ?[/quote]

Possibilities

1. When they arrive and find out how easy it is to beat the system they switch to plan B

2. They are fibbing

3. Selective screening. The scroungers will form the basis of the next series.

John