Forum Topic

No more visa scheme for businesses

No more visa schemes for businesses, say government sourcesThe UK will not introduce visa schemes for any other sectors facing staff shortages, sources have told the BBC.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58740502What an insult!!

Ivonne Holliday ● 1867d9 Comments

Ivonne what particular businesses is this an insult to?Most of the ones mentioned really need better wages and conditions to retain existing staff. Otherwise you end up with a sector with a large churn or the tax payers topping up wages and subsidising large profits and exponential executive pay rises.

Ed Robinson ● 1866d

Isn't the problem that if you have a successful economy but an overall ageing population one needs an influx of labour from somewhere? That doesn't mean one shouldn't pay higher wages to attract staff; or that the current economy is actually successful and expanding rather than just recovering after the pandemic, time will tell. However, there seem to be shortages in a number of areas - hospitality, HGV drivers, food processing, crop picking, nursing, caring, etc - and I know in the high tech areas of IT and info/cyber security there are also skill shortages. Too many jobs chasing too few people? Perhaps the UK has lost some people who once did some of these jobs? Perhaps the high tech jobs will be solved by tele-working and created jobs elsewhere around the globe? (Perhaps not something the government really wants for "global Britain" but even if visas are available for these high tech positions unless people's partners/spouses can also get visas for other jobs that isn't going to work.)

Michael Ixer ● 1866d

Michael all the sectors you mention have low pay and crap conditions.Can you name one with good pay and good conditions that has shortages??

Ed Robinson ● 1866d

I did: cyber security!

Michael Ixer ● 1866d

The complaint in Cyber and Info security is that people keep raising salaries to attract staff from the competition. I know one industry group setting up an initiative to attract youngsters an train them. Last night I was at another industry group where someone from the NHS was bending my ear about their salaries being uncompetitive to attract the best from other industries - that's a problem when the sponsors provide free booze, people poor out their hearts to anyone who'll listen - mind you I had my own rant about something :-)

Michael Ixer ● 1866d

Yes Michael so you did.How is the gender ratio in Cyber and Info security?I have to admit all the people I knew in that sector were males.An interesting article here:https://www.stemwomen.co.uk/blog/2021/07/women-in-cyber-security-solving-the-gender-imbalance-in-cyber

Ed Robinson ● 1866d

Ed, to be honest the female:male ratio in cyber and information security is poor. Of course cyber/infosec does cover a wide range of disciplines; I'd say there's a higher proportion of female staff in security awareness and risk management than the technical side but that probably reflects IT in general, although I have worked with some excellent women "techies". (Quality isn't a problem, it's quantity!)At last night's seminar one of the four speakers was female, and there are some female CEOs of cyber companies such as Poppy Gustafsson of Darktrace or Zoe Edmeades MD of The Security Company (International) but they are the exception rather than the rule. Some of us do try to help; several years ago I supported one of my female staff to have company sponsorship for an MSc in Information Security at Royal Holloway, and I've given others opportunities in an Infosec team. (And at the time it was a fairly small team.) However when one goes to recruit technical staff most of the CVs are from men.An interesting point is that when I entered IT (or computing as it was called then) in the early 70s there seemed to be a higher proportion of female staff and in my programming/applications development days of the 70s & 80s there seemed to be a higher proportion of female staff. Something seemed to happen in the 90s onwards with the rise of Microsoft and lots of technical staff needed to support utility, networks and operating software rather than define applications and talk to users which seemed to created an imbalance in favour of male staff. I suspect it reflects the imbalance in STEM subjects and the perception that STEM subjects are necessary for IT, whereas the software house I worked for in the 1970s recruited a lot of language and arts graduates because they were better at talking to users and defining requirements, and frequently they were female.All I can say is that industry bodies and many in infosec do realise that it's necessary to attract a more diverse intake than white males into cyber security to resolve the skills shortage.(Sorry, that's abitif a quick brain dump.)

Michael Ixer ● 1866d

I have to admit Michael, if I was a minister being asked for visas I would be asking hard questions why the ratio is so poor and what are they doing to address the imbalance.I think my experience over the years has been similar to yours. Other countries appear to be doing better including India.Of course the other issue over the years has been emigration. Never really discussed and if it is in relation to net immigration.

Ed Robinson ● 1866d

Ed, I agree with you although judging by the number of US staff working in the UK I suspect IT and related tech are an area where it's easier to get visas because of the salary levels? The other issue is getting people from a wider diversity to apply for jobs in the technical sphere. There are initiatives to address that but they will probably take time to produce results.However, as I said in an earlier post, global security companies may not care; they can use staff around the world to develop software and support it rather than move staff around and worry about visas, and the majority of "cloud" services are based in the US or EU, they may have token data centres in the UK but don't necessity have to support them here. (Even back in the late 80s/early 90s I was manager for the UK development and support team of a small-ish US software company and we worked on developments along with the US group based in California.)Of course, we shouldn't ignore the fact that the UK does have some innovative and world leading companies like Darktrace and I know of some UK security experts working for US companies that spend a significant proportion of their time in Washington DC.In reality high tech can possibly look after itself as it has money and can apply pressure on politicians. The real problems are those organisations paying lower salaries and with smaller incomes that need staff on the ground to provide services. But perhaps they'll be more investment in robotics to pick fruit, provide care and heath needs, drive HGVs, etc?

Michael Ixer ● 1866d