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back to article Ballerinas and fish-gutters beat techies in UK immigration race

The UK is in dire need of ballet dancers, fish-gutters and sheep shearers - but not, it seems IT staff. The government’s Migration Advisory Committee today published its “list of occupations for which there is a shortage of skilled workers in the UK and Scotland”, which will provide the backbone for a new points-based system …

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  1. Adrian Jones

    UK and Scotland?

    Has Scotland seceded from the union now?

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Eh?

    "shortage of skilled workers in the UK and Scotland". Since when was Scotland not in the UK?

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  3. Robert Grant

    Doctors?

    There are loads of doctors; the government trained them. There aren't enough doctors in hospitals because there wasn't enough money earmarked to employ them all, so some are now out of work.

    Good, eh?

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    how about

    Not accepting anybody, and training up the lazy, unskilled, wastes of space that constitute a large part of the indiginous population sat on their fat ar*es claiming benefits.

    or even altering recruitment practices slightly so that people without 2-3 years experience can get a job as a trainee before decrying that there isn't anyone suitable in the country and looking elsewhere

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  5. Graham Cunningham
    Coat

    Chrome again

    After news of Germany's Austro-Dutch empire, new shock report of Scotland's secession from the UK ...

    "...skilled workers in the UK and Scotland”

    Mine's the one with the independent tartan lining.

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  6. P.Alan Smith
    Alien

    UK and Scotland?

    I was golfing in Ayrshire only 10 days ago and assumed that I was in the UK as they accepted my Bank of England notes ... perhaps there's another Scotland for me to find!

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Little by little the night turns around

    The list also includes "ship and hovercraft officers". Where is Britain going to get hovercraft officers? I feel sad at the thought of all those hovercraft sitting idle. I imagine that the rubber skirts perish if the owners don't run them up and down the jetty a few times a year.

    Presumably we have plenty of submarine officers. Does Britain have enough balloonists? Mole-men?

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  8. Whitter
    Thumb Up

    Fish filliters

    Filliting frozen fish? That's a right hard skill, sure enough.

    I always thaw them first.

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  9. Matthew Glubb
    Unhappy

    Lack of officially recognised qualifications?

    In the case of most of the other professions mentioned, they all have long standing qualifications that are recognised by law / employers / government. In the case of IT, it's all too easy to claim to be competent in your field, by the time your employer finds out you aren't, you are already in the country.

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Too many pretend IT people!

    The reason IT staff are not needed is because every Tom, Dick and Harry even remotely connected to a computer these days, say they work in IT, web designers say they are IT people, generic security people say they are IT specialists. No you are a graphics designer with an expert use of a computer tool and using Excel to plot the number of viruses that got lose this year in your company's network does not qualify you to be an IT person!

    Sorry, but there should a certificate that you need to work in IT and in the middle should be the question: Which of these did you own as a kid: ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Amstrad CPC, Sinclair Research 380 or WTF?

    Then we'll IT staff get back up that list!!

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  11. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    I am retraining as a ballerina

    I might be a white, male, desk-bound, middle-aged manager, but I'm not going to let some skinny foreign bitch come over here and steal my dream!

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  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re: Ashley Pomeroy

    I thought we didn't have any hovercrafts left after watching the ones down at Gosport being ripped to shreds a few years back.

    even the grey RN one was striped down if memory serves me correctly.

    However I would happily join a training scheme to learn to pilot such air-beded machines... but its not something I've seen advertised in the "positions available" section of the papers.

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  13. Trevor Pearson
    Stop

    They missed .....

    I was disappointed that the committee failed to spot the depressingly large shortage of skilled Politicans, Quangoits and Think-tank-ists we need. I submit that their failure is proof positive of the need........

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  14. Niall
    Joke

    @Ashley Pomeroy

    A job where I help the owners of rubber skirts run up and down sounds interesting. Where can I sign up?

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  15. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Fish Filleters?

    That'll be why Peterhead and Fraserburgh are chock a block with Eastern Europeans, living 10 to a room and working for way below the minimum wage then.

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  16. Jamie
    Linux

    Loads of IT

    If that is the case then I hate to see what they would call a shortage. Every week I get at least one offer from a company to work for them on either a consultant basis or full time. Been in this country for almost 5 years was out of work for the first 5 days after which I had to look for work or go crazy.

    Usually in a recession or downturn in the economy IT are the first to go but I get just as many requests now as ever.

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  18. David Harper

    @Evil Graham

    Look on the bright side, there are people who would probably pay good money to see you in a tutu. Your employees for a start. Go on, cheer them up tomorrow morning with a quick pas de deux.

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  19. Jason Clery

    @AC

    "Which of these did you own as a kid: ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Amstrad CPC, Sinclair Research 380 or WTF?"

    Posh git, I had a ZX80 and a Commodore VIC 20

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  20. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    @AC 13:44

    >Which of these did you own as a kid: ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Amstrad CPC, Sinclair Research 380 or WTF?

    I pwned Micros, but that's because they were networked...

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  21. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @AC

    Right On!!! Far to many Johnny Foreigners already in the UK IT market pulling down the rates for the real UK IT consultants. They also dilute the intelligence pool, making employers think all IT contractors are as thick as pig sh*t.

    There already is a qualifications for IT professionals - the BCS offer the CITP qualification as a starter for 10, but we all know real experience is what counts, not just lying on your CV and reading the odd webpage and gleaning techie sounding words....

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  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Perhaps...

    if companys would acctualy train people post degree, rather than wanting people with expirience then it would be better. Try finding a job for a non charterd engineer. Impossible.

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  23. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    No need for techies

    They dont need to come here to get a job they can stay in India as everything has been outsourced.

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  24. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Along with training the benefit wasters...

    As well as cutting benefits to a level where fat chav scum are forced to go back to work I propose that all government quangoites and think tank wankers are immediately retrained to do something useful like pick fruit and veg so we don't need to import the poles to do it for us.

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  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Loads of IT

    Yeah, before I took my current role I was being bombarded by headhunters. Vacancies per day. All of them were, I finally managed to discover, requiring a minimum number of candidates in three figures. So you needed to be put forward for hundreds of them to be considered.

    The BCS and their ilk have swamped the system with so many semi-skilled IT graduates that the system of IT recruitment is grinding to a halt and can only be solved by churning out even more semi-skilled IT graduates so recruiters can't find staff who can do the job among the morass of semi-skilled IT graduates.

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  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hold on .. has the Reg missed the point?

    Hold on a minute, surely its a good thing that IT is not listed as being a suitable skilled job to be filled through immigration?? Its bad enough to offshore work and people onshore lose jobs .. the last thing UK IT people might want is "in"-shoring where we bring people in on (potentially) lower wages, surely?

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  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @David Harper

    "Go on, cheer them up tomorrow morning with a quick pas de deux."

    What are you on about? I didn't say I was learning to cook.

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  28. Anthony

    @Anonymous Coward

    >ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Amstrad CPC

    If only I'd kept them

    Especially the beeb!

    I miss connecting home made electronics to the user port and typing up a quick BASIC program to use it:(

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  29. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Typical

    There are plenty of skilled IT specialists in the UK (and Scotland too); it's just that businesses use recruiters who don't know an operating system from a browser, and because these businesses refuse to pay money-for-value.

    Glad to see at least One organisation hasn't fallen for the Skills Shortage Lobby

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  30. Sarev
    Thumb Up

    @ Evil Graham

    Well, I for one would pay to watch that.

    www.themapleacademy.com

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  31. Alan White

    RE: Has Scotland seceded from the union now?

    Scotland has different economic (and demographic) needs to the rest of the UK, so it needs to be regarded differently in any sensible (well, purporting to be) system. Albeit it'll be a system designed to dissuade immigration, if the current visa setup is anything to go by.

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  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No need for techies

    AC's right, they're not on the shortage list because they're not needed.

    What is required is a load of people willing to do menial seasonal work (fish & sheep), and highly skilled entertainers (ballerinas & footballers) then after the plebs have paid you a fortune for watching a load of blokes kick a ball about you can have your Salmon mousse, followed by a nice bit of roast lamb in your wool suit whilst watching the ballet.

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  33. Eddie Edwards
    Pirate

    WTF

    "ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Amstrad CPC, Sinclair Research 380 or WTF?"

    Dragon 32?!

    WTF is a Sinclair Research 380 anyway?

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  34. yeah, right.
    Gates Horns

    IT vs HR

    IT people know that there's more to being good at IT than some certifications. HR people, however, have no such knowledge. They're trained to look for young people with lots of certifications, regardless of the actual knowledge they have.

    HR is strangling not only the UK (and Scotland, apparently), but the world with their completely ignorant approach to screening applicants. We'd be much better of the whole lot were marched off a short pier, preferably after being fitted for cement shoes. I've yet to see a single HR group that actually adds value to any organization I've been with.

    Bill, because he convinced people that an MCSE is sufficient proof of knowledge in IT.

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  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There is no shortage for a lot of them

    there's just a shortage of people who are willing to do the jobs at the salaries the companies offer.

    Why should someone go and take a job that "requires" a technical degree, but actually involves a bit of maths and the ability to follow some basic instructions, when they could get paid £5-10k more a year for fucking about in an office pretending they understand how the markets work?

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  36. J
    IT Angle

    Re: how about

    "Not accepting anybody, and training up the lazy, unskilled, wastes of space that constitute a large part of the indiginous population sat on their fat ar*es claiming benefits."

    No good, because that would be, in the short term, more expensive and more work than just importing cheaper labor. Welcome to capitalism.

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  37. ian
    Linux

    Why is Northern Ireland not listed?

    Surely Northern Ireland has a shortage of ballerinas and a different demographic from Scotland and England. Or has devolution evolved so far?

    Lest we forget, these isles have a penguin shortage.

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  38. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    No thank-you

    "Then we'll IT staff get back up that list!!"

    Oh good, then my entire department can be laid off yet again and replaced with half-price imports.

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  39. Derek Hellam
    Flame

    What shortage?

    There has never been a shortage of any skilled people in the UK. There is a shortage of skilled people willing to work for peanuts, in shitty companies with no benefits at all!

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  40. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Newbie Wankers @AC

    Mines the Altair 8800, home made, based on the Popular Electronics PC board.

    How do I learn sheep shearing? Buy a few of the cute darlings, hit the world wide tat bazaar for some scissors, view a couple of UBoob vids, and start hacking away? Isn't that how most of the IT people learned IT?

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  41. P. Lee
    Linux

    re: Why is Northern Ireland not listed?

    ...because its "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

    All that NI goodness built right into the UK!

    Tux - more cuddly than Paris, Bill, Steve or a dead vulture.

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  42. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    all that will happen...

    is that the same people will be shipped in under the guise of being fish gutters, sous chefs and ballerinas. I predict that the IT services companies will soon be announcing the creation of divisions devoted to Catering and Classical Dance.

    Mine's the McDonalds jacket with no stars on the name badge...

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  43. Ian Oliver

    What about...

    jury members or are these going to be specifically appointed by Jaqui Smith?

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  44. Chris G

    IT is not on the list

    Because any one who has done any type of IT course will be included. Mums going back to work get freebie basic computing courses. The people who put these list together don't really know what a bricklayer really does, never mind an IT admin etc. Of for that matter a frozen fish gutting ballerina.

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  45. hexacet
    Paris Hilton

    you missed the big one...

    according to the bbc news article england is also critically short of english teachers so we now have to recruit non english speakers to teach english to the english...

    hex

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  46. Geoff Mackenzie

    Re: UK and Scotland, English Notes

    That's funny, I was in England a few months ago and they wouldn't take my Clydesdale Bank notes. I sense a curious asymmetry.

    Seriously, I don't think the large numbers of 'fake IT people' are really the problem. The UK's got an exit wound where industry used to be. All we manufacture is fresh food and bullshit. Both great industries, don't get me wrong, but they can only provide so many worthwhile jobs.

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  47. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Re: Eddie Edwards

    "WTF is a Sinclair Research 380 anyway?"

    I think he meant an RML 380Z: or Research Machines 380Z:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Machines_380Z

    They were Z80 based machines on which, amongst other things, I did my A-level project. I remember with some glee writing a lisp/prolog hybrid language in Pascal on that beast.

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  48. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Re: Computers as a kid

    I can't help but feel that my old Atari 800 XL's being unfairly discriminated against here!

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  49. mike panero
    Dead Vulture

    RE:Cooks

    There appears to be none in Dorset & certainly not Bournemouth

    Worst food ever

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  50. Keith T

    Govt currently understands law supply and demand on IT wages

    When there is a genuine of IT workers, IT worker wages will go up, and people will train to become IT workers. Unlike professions such as medicine, law and engineering, it doesn't take 20 years of experience to gain expert skill in programming, analysis or LAN administration, 5 years is plenty.

    While IT wages are depressed, informed intelligent people are going to seek other professions and trades.

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