All those skilled workers on seasonal work visas.
Also, the wage for a 'skilled worker' visa is £26,200 p.a. or £10.75 an hour. That is less than Pret pay.
Wage stagnation is caused by greedy employers, not EU immigration.
It's probably set at that level for nurses. If we didn't have such a shortage or we paid them properly it would be higher.
Also, your maths is way off or you haven't read the requirements properly.
£26.2k is £12.59 per hour for 40 hrs a week or £13.44 for 37.5 hours. (£12.59 x 40hrs x 52 weeks).
£10.75 per hour is only £22,360.
The requirements are £26.2k or £10.75 if you meet certain criteria:
> the job is in a shortage occupation
> under 26, studying or a recent graduate, or in professional training
> have a science, technology, engineering or maths (STEM) PhD level qualification that’s relevant to your job (if you have a relevant PhD level qualification in any other subject your salary must be at least £23,580)
> have a postdoctoral position in science or higher education
Wage stagnation is caused by supply and demand. If someone is willing to do the job for minimum wage then that is what employers will pay. If they can get away with paying minimum wage and charging rent for on-site accommodation of 6 to a shipping crate and selling food to employees via the on-site shop to recoup most of the salary then employers will do that as well.
I'm not going to argue with you that rates are low or that people aren't paid enough. I fully agree with that, 100%. One of the problems is that the lowest wages never rising gives no incentives for higher wages to rise which keeps everyone's wages down. If you could get paid the same for doing an unskilled job as one you had to train and get experience for then why would anyone choose to spend time, money and effort doing it? Keeping wages low at the bottom affects everyone. Supply and demand sees wages rising when supply of labour is low. That in turn pushes wages up further up the chain to retain staff.