£400K to seduce immigrants

[craggy_steve 990]

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/budget-of-400000-for-scheme-to-attract-skilled-workers-to-island/

 

I'm not overly excited about this - £400K is not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but I do a bit of IT recruitment and I have a book full of English-speaking South Africans (and some others) desperate to move here because it is so much safer than South Africa, and much less bigoted than the UK, and we have a strong South African expat community etc. Which kind of makes me think that actually we don't really need to spend money to attract skilled workers - they already want to come here. From my perspective the problem is more our employers being overly selective, turning away good skills and talent because they don't have experience of our specific business sectors, specific UK/IoM  industry certifications (we are rather certification heavy on the IoM) etc.

Thoughts? 

[WTF 3,798]

other than doctors, who are smart enough to give the place a wide berth anyway, what other well paid skilled jobs are we struggling to find workers for??   maybe we are short of baristas??

[craggy_steve 990]

7 minutes ago, WTF said:

other than doctors, who are smart enough to give the place a wide berth anyway, what other well paid skilled jobs are we struggling to find workers for??   maybe we are short of baristas??

Allegedly we are short of IT folk, e-Gaming folk etc. Although I note from the Jobcentre website that actually the biggest pool of job ads appears to be for accountancy types, and recently both the Construction and Hospitality sectors have been complaining of difficulties getting warm bodies.

[Shake me up Judy 3,893]

It's the same old bollocks trotted out every time that the developers, land-bankers and estate agents want to throw up another housing development and keep the mixers rolling. Heard it all before. It's usually the Chamber of Commerce putting out the same line.

 

Nothing as usual about training our own skilled workers - because it's never ever about that.  

[Albert Tatlock 9,499]

Most recruitment of skilled IT is done online these days. The jobs are already there. Work permits are no longer required in many cases. Recruitment people already spend thousands to advertise and all people need to do is apply.

Skelly's job is to get the house prices down here, the infrastructure fixed and build up the leisure facilities and night life to attract people to stay here. And get the cost of living down. 

This spend is simply an admission of major failure on that front. Lots of people have come here from abroad and moved elsewhere within a few years, many that have stayed are struggling to afford to live here.

The IOM recruitment model is bolloxed. ...simply because the island is run by spendthrift wankers who don't understand the private sector at all.

[thesultanofsheight 7,350]

30 minutes ago, craggy_steve said:

I'm not overly excited about this - £400K is not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but I do a bit of IT recruitment and I have a book full of English-speaking South Africans (and some others) desperate to move here because it is so much safer than South Africa, and much less bigoted than the UK, and we have a strong South African expat community etc.

I tend to agree. AND as a general point if people are well educated, solvent, and looking for highly skilled work they can probably afford to pay for their own f**king airfare or ticket to move to the IOM. Why are we scraping the barrel trying to bring over tight arses who are expecting a handout? The attraction in the SA community alone is pretty simple as you say Steve - come to the IOM as nobody’s going to shoot you and then rape your corpse for a second hand Toyota and a big screen TV. It’s not about money. 

[Non-Believer 7,856]

Says something when we've got to offer sweeteners (or even "bribes"?) to try and attract people to come here.

As Albert says, it's a massive admission of failure that we would appear to be able little else attractive enough to entice the people that we purport to need so badly?

[yootalkin2me 568]

1 hour ago, craggy_steve said:

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/budget-of-400000-for-scheme-to-attract-skilled-workers-to-island/

 

I'm not overly excited about this - £400K is not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but I do a bit of IT recruitment and I have a book full of English-speaking South Africans (and some others) desperate to move here because it is so much safer than South Africa, and much less bigoted than the UK, and we have a strong South African expat community etc. Which kind of makes me think that actually we don't really need to spend money to attract skilled workers - they already want to come here. From my perspective the problem is more our employers being overly selective, turning away good skills and talent because they don't have experience of our specific business sectors, specific UK/IoM  industry certifications (we are rather certification heavy on the IoM) etc.

Thoughts? 

Do we really want more white South Africans, haven't we filled out quota....unless they're Dentists, we can never have enough Dentists?

[Gizo 1,739]

Can’t be arsed reading the article but why don’t they spend 400k on Manx people to become skilled. 

 

[craggy_steve 990]

6 minutes ago, yootalkin2me said:

Do we really want more white South Africans, haven't we filled out quota....unless they're Dentists, we can never have enough Dentists?

Who do we want? I've got some Iranian, Egyptian and Greek IT folk on the books too. Nothing wrong with any of them just as there's nothing wrong with white South Africans; in my view they have built up a good expat ecosystem here, and some worthwhile businesses (Louis Group excepted), I think they are strong contributors to the island. 

Like @Gizo I would prefer to see the money spent on upskilling the current populace.

[Chris C 256]

Only the Manx government could so roundly reject the idea of accepting a handful of Syrian refugees a few weeks before deciding to throw long hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to bribe people to come and live here. 

Perhaps if we have a skills shortage we should start not pulling down the pants and raping anyone who wants to go into higher education.  #fuckwits 

[Rushen Spy 721]

It's just another example of corruption on the island with private businesses using their influence on government to get subsidies which will ultimately benefit those companies and allow them to reduce the remuneration they give to staff from overseas.

[Mr Helmut Fromage 717]

55 minutes ago, Gizo said:

Can’t be arsed reading the article but why don’t they spend 400k on Manx people to become skilled. 

 

Or just pop it in another pot it to soften the Govt cost when they sack the militant Posties / downsize the Royal Mail - essentially the same thing spending it on unskilled labour.....

[Rushen Spy 721]

1 hour ago, Gizo said:

Can’t be arsed reading the article but why don’t they spend 400k on Manx people to become skilled. 

 

Because the Government (the real government in charge here, not Tynwald) isn't controlled by Manx people or people who have the interest of Manx people in mind.

[dilligaf 7,794]

1 hour ago, craggy_steve said:

Who do we want? I've got some Iranian, Egyptian and Greek IT folk on the books too. Nothing wrong with any of them just as there's nothing wrong with white South Africans; in my view they have built up a good expat ecosystem here, and some worthwhile businesses (Louis Group excepted), I think they are strong contributors to the island. 

Like @Gizo I would prefer to see the money spent on upskilling the current populace.

Reminds me of a "Spitting Image" song. , but I won't post it. To many snowflakes.