Kate it isn't that it is cheaper to import migrants than train our own people but that it is faster.
It is also politically expedient.
Consider this... Industry has known for at least ten years that a skills shortage was imminent... Industry has not trained enough workers in the skills needed because the wages of tradespeople are not high enough to make it more profitable to employ apprentices to do work under supervision....When migrants are imported to do the work then social outrage applies pressure on government to increase incentives for employers to train people and thereby make it more profitable to hire apprentices.
Such incentives could include the lowering of wages in real terms or removing the right of employees to unfair dismissal laws so that they must pander to every whim of their employer, including unpaid overtime.
Johnny Howard's new IR reform means that an employer will be able to ask for loveual favours, in the first instance, then sack you, in the second instance, and as long as the employer does not explain that you were sacked because you refused his loveual advances you can not lodge an unfair dismissal claim or a loveual harbuttment claim!
Regards
Lawrence
"Democracy is a form of politics whereby we get the government we deserve"
