I'm A Foreign Banker...Get Me Out Of Here!
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According to a recent survey, there are in fact people even more unpopular than bankers: foreign bankers!
The survey, published this week in the FT, states that 53% of the British population oppose the right for citizens of other European Union countries to work in the UK.
This figure - while being astoundingly high - is in fact mirrored across the main countries of the EU, and is therefore not unique to the UK.
What it means, for instance, is that on an average Saturday afternoon, of the 75,000 football fans at Manchester's Old Trafford stadium, approximately 40,000 think that Christiano Ronaldo should be send home to Portugal to apply his trade there. (As an Arsenal supporter, the thought of Christiano Ronaldo and Fernando Torres stripped of their work permits is tempting. Realistically however, this benefit would be outweighed by the fact the Gunners XI would be reduced to Theo Walcott alone.)
Also, in my immediate vicinity, it means that at least two of my British colleagues would like to see me banned from working in this country.
Over the years, I have been employed by various institutions where the teams I worked in had one thing in common: at the very most, about 25% of the team members were British.
One could wonder why employers would choose such demographics, but the reason probably does not lie in the fact that foreign workers are the cheapest labourers that can be found. In fact, I'd like to believe that every single member of the team was chosen based on his or her qualifications, and it just so happened that the resulting group covered a variety of nationalities.
Conversely I don't think that any of these employees came to the UK as a last resort because they couldn't find work at home. It was the prospect of working at one of the financial centres of the world that attracted talent them. They are people like me who pay (a decent amount of) taxes without having any say in who is - or who should be - running this country.
While the Protectionism and Nationalism card is a cheap one to play, it is also foolish to believe that if vacancies are not allowed to be filled with foreign employees, they will go to the home-grown workforce. If banks could only hire UK nationals in this country, the jobs wouldn't go to British, they would most likely go somewhere else.
The fact that the minority of my colleagues are British is not a consequence of too-lax regulations, but of the fact that the British workforce may simply not turn out enough people with the skill set and necessary education to fill all of the jobs.
And this cannot be rectified by simply refusing foreigners the right to work here.
This figure - while being astoundingly high - is in fact mirrored across the main countries of the EU, and is therefore not unique to the UK.
What it means, for instance, is that on an average Saturday afternoon, of the 75,000 football fans at Manchester's Old Trafford stadium, approximately 40,000 think that Christiano Ronaldo should be send home to Portugal to apply his trade there. (As an Arsenal supporter, the thought of Christiano Ronaldo and Fernando Torres stripped of their work permits is tempting. Realistically however, this benefit would be outweighed by the fact the Gunners XI would be reduced to Theo Walcott alone.)
Also, in my immediate vicinity, it means that at least two of my British colleagues would like to see me banned from working in this country.
Over the years, I have been employed by various institutions where the teams I worked in had one thing in common: at the very most, about 25% of the team members were British.
One could wonder why employers would choose such demographics, but the reason probably does not lie in the fact that foreign workers are the cheapest labourers that can be found. In fact, I'd like to believe that every single member of the team was chosen based on his or her qualifications, and it just so happened that the resulting group covered a variety of nationalities.
Conversely I don't think that any of these employees came to the UK as a last resort because they couldn't find work at home. It was the prospect of working at one of the financial centres of the world that attracted talent them. They are people like me who pay (a decent amount of) taxes without having any say in who is - or who should be - running this country.
While the Protectionism and Nationalism card is a cheap one to play, it is also foolish to believe that if vacancies are not allowed to be filled with foreign employees, they will go to the home-grown workforce. If banks could only hire UK nationals in this country, the jobs wouldn't go to British, they would most likely go somewhere else.
The fact that the minority of my colleagues are British is not a consequence of too-lax regulations, but of the fact that the British workforce may simply not turn out enough people with the skill set and necessary education to fill all of the jobs.
And this cannot be rectified by simply refusing foreigners the right to work here.
Here Is The Writer : Square Mylo
Square Mylo came to London with the intention of staying six months and never left. He has worked in Canary Wharf and in the Square Mile, but still maintains a clear conscience since he's never worked in Mayfair. Being a banker is his true calling. Maybe he should have listened more closely.
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