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The conversation with the taxi driver began innocuously enough. We chatted about the nice weather. He said he hoped it would continue as he was going on holiday in a couple of weeks. I replied that we were as well, to Turkey, for the first time. He said he loved Turkey because of the food and the hot weather and the people and how he’d thought about moving there but --
“They’re really strict on immigration laws.”
“Oh? How so?”
“Well, you can’t just move there and get a job. You have to prove that you’re not taking a job from a Turkish person. So if you want to open a restaurant, you can be the owner, but you have to train and employ all Turkish people. You can go around and greet customers, shake hands, be seen, but you can’t cook or wait tables or even be seen sweeping up after it shuts or they’ll close you down. I completely agree with that idea because it means the jobs created all go to the Turkish locals.”
I considered my reply carefully. “That’s how the visa system works here, too, for non-EEA* migrants.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. When I got my first job here, my employers had to prove that they couldn’t find a British candidate with my skills in order to obtain a visa**.”
“I didn’t know they bothered with that.”
“Yes, they do. It’s not easy to get a visa even if you have highly specialised skills like mine.”
“Well, I think Turkey have got it right. Everyone should have to do that no matter where they’re from. We don’t need more people doing stuff like going over to Spain to work part-time in a bar. We have enough people to do all the unskilled jobs here.”
Thankfully we arrived at my destination before the seemingly inevitable “and that’s why I’m voting UKIP”. /o\
* European Economic Area. Americans are non-EEA migrants, although most British people seem to think that "non-EEA migrant" == "asylum seeker". Oh and by the way the immigration system is just as draconian for asylum seekers as it is for other non-EEA migrants.
** Tier 2. It is now even more difficult to obtain a Tier 2 visa even through an employer like mine, a top-ranked academic research institution. More and more positions, even post-doctoral ones, are advertised with the proviso that applicants must already have the right to work in the UK.
“They’re really strict on immigration laws.”
“Oh? How so?”
“Well, you can’t just move there and get a job. You have to prove that you’re not taking a job from a Turkish person. So if you want to open a restaurant, you can be the owner, but you have to train and employ all Turkish people. You can go around and greet customers, shake hands, be seen, but you can’t cook or wait tables or even be seen sweeping up after it shuts or they’ll close you down. I completely agree with that idea because it means the jobs created all go to the Turkish locals.”
I considered my reply carefully. “That’s how the visa system works here, too, for non-EEA* migrants.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. When I got my first job here, my employers had to prove that they couldn’t find a British candidate with my skills in order to obtain a visa**.”
“I didn’t know they bothered with that.”
“Yes, they do. It’s not easy to get a visa even if you have highly specialised skills like mine.”
“Well, I think Turkey have got it right. Everyone should have to do that no matter where they’re from. We don’t need more people doing stuff like going over to Spain to work part-time in a bar. We have enough people to do all the unskilled jobs here.”
Thankfully we arrived at my destination before the seemingly inevitable “and that’s why I’m voting UKIP”. /o\
* European Economic Area. Americans are non-EEA migrants, although most British people seem to think that "non-EEA migrant" == "asylum seeker". Oh and by the way the immigration system is just as draconian for asylum seekers as it is for other non-EEA migrants.
** Tier 2. It is now even more difficult to obtain a Tier 2 visa even through an employer like mine, a top-ranked academic research institution. More and more positions, even post-doctoral ones, are advertised with the proviso that applicants must already have the right to work in the UK.
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And where does he suppose we'll be when we have no immigrants and no EU membership?
Up to the neck in ordure is where!
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On the positive side, I also spoke to a taxi driver this week who said he was going to vote Green because he thinks the women (from the debates) should be running the country. :)
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The visa I held for a long time and under which I qualified for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) - Tier 1 - I would no longer be able to obtain, because despite the PhD and years of employment, my salary would be deemed insufficient by quite a lot. You must make £150k/annum now. Originally the salary requirement was on a sliding scale depending on employment experience, depended on your geographic location (so more required from richer countries) and was much more in line with what an academic might make, as opposed to a banker.
Visas based on marriage or civil partnership used to be easier to obtain, and it took less time to get ILR on them. People used to ask me why the bloke and I didn't just get married because it would only take three years for me to qualify for ILR. Now it's five years, just as with employment-based visas, and there are also savings and salary requirements on both partners which are quite restrictive.
I don't know the specifics of visa schemes in other European countries for non-EEA migrants but given that the overall European attitude toward migration seems to be unfavourable, I can't imagine that they're less restrictive. :/
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I'm really confused by what the point of having a visa category for people with an income of L150k/year: even from the US, which I suspect is one of the highest-income countries not in the EEA, that comes out to $225k/year, which according to http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-is-your-us-income-percentile.html#.VTKHroUlyTq would put one in the 99th percentile of yearly individual incomes in the US.
Other interesting trivia: the highest possible US civil service salary for technical positions is that of a GS-15, Step 10 with the San Francisco locality adjustment, which comes out to $178k/year, so it sounds like no one working for NASA could actually qualify for a work visa to the UK? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Schedule_%28US_civil_service_pay_scale%29
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I'm really confused by what the point of having a visa category for people with an income of £150k/year
The point is to make them pretty much unobtainable by anyone who isn't already wealthy or running a successful business. Very few Tier 1 visas are awarded any more. And you're right, the income threshold rules out most civil servants, probably deliberately.
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I read parts of the UKIP manifesto yesterday for a piece I'm writing. Hideously ugly doesn't begin to cover their weltanschaung. There's a very calculated decision to appeal to people's ignorance and hate, and yet their supporters seem to feel that's a positive.
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(I think I need a "nopetopus" icon for these occasions)
(sympathies)
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You get the greatest fear of Muslims where there aren't any Muslims.
The 'kippers know it and play on it. :o(
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We live in a delightfully multicultural area with Gulmini two doors down and Eyna next door to her and I suspect my having had an African boyfriend in my graduate studenting days back in the seventies also opened my eyes really wide as to how not to be a racist dimwit! :o)
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(In that specific case, though, that's changing because the region I grew up in is also getting poorer and that usually leads to people trying to find someone to blame...)
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