I’m still struggling with the government’s rhetoric around immigration policy and jobs. The central premise appears to be: introduce an immigration system that focuses on allowing “high-skilled” workers into the UK to take up jobs 1/ https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1200380016263122945
The obvious conclusion is that we can then “save” the low-skilled jobs for UK workers (or at least those currently resident here). So, crudely, lower paid jobs for Brits, higher paid jobs for overseas workers 2/
Putting aside the problems of categorising low and high skilled (e.g. lots of difficult, skilled work in agriculture would probably be characterised as low-skilled), this seems a very odd political pitch…although one that no one seems particularly bothered by! 3/
Even more strangely, on R4 yesterday a minister argued that a “high skill, high wage economy" will be the best route to increasing current UK household incomes. (It was on the subject of child poverty – here c.23 mins https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000bp4c) 4/
BUT… the pitch for a future immigration system is that those “high skill, high wage” jobs will be the ones we will facilitate immigration for. It sounds like it will be the “low skill, low wage” ones that will be kept by for UK households… /5
Anyway,I've no doubt missed the nuance of of the debate. But surely our future immigration system should be based on need – ensuring jobs are filled with those workers best suited for the roles. /End
You can follow @nvonwestenholz.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: