Jamie Oliver: Migrants are tougher workers

Surely this depends on the area of work?! In my sector you'd usually take the Brit, because most corporate lawyers put the hours in regardless of passport and you need a seriously good grasp of English to do the job well.

You are right. Sector specific. But there's been a move to outsource legal jobs to places like India over the years. As wage gaps however are closing between East and West, decisions tend to get made on productivity levels. i.e youmay find it still cheaper to do a job in a high wage country if that's coupled with higher productivity levels.....and productivity levels aren't linked to hours worked. It's how much work you can do in a given hour.

So for example, you may find out that expensive Luxemburg is a better place to invest in that cheap Mexico.



I think though what Jamie Oliver is trying to say is that some Nations work harder than others in the given time scale, and sometimes when you're starting off your career, then you need to put a bit more effort into succeed. We seem to be creating a generation of people who want success for minimum effort. Many on here seem to buy into that idea that once they graduate they can do 37.5 hours and get paid well and promoted. Identify those people and you'll see the ones that haven't really progressed ten years own the line.

not big ticket corporate work, barely makes it outside the city never mind the country. Shops like irwin mitchell and slater and gordon tried to farm their ambulance chasing stuff off to india, but that backfired miserably and most have now brought it back to the regional offices it started in or, presumably for lower wages, belfast.

But that's because they're mainly 16/17. Tsr has a marked split between those who want as you describe and those who think the only way to ever be successful is to go and work in ib on 110-120 hours a week with a massive coke habit. When they're older they'll realise either's likely to lead to either career stagnation or a massive breakdown following the discovery of exactly what 'up or out' means. In reality most people are happy to accept that in junior positions with good prospects you'll probably have to work 50-80 most weeks with the occasional 100, unless it's clinical where it's not allowed, most realise the two extremes are rare and often have unfortunate outcomes.

I'm not entirely sure they do work harder. I'm fed up of hearing how the current youth are useless and lazy. Give me a frigging chance in your company to prove myself and you won't be saying we're useless.

I find the whole argument ridiculous and dishonest.

What came first, the migrant workers or the **** jobs? People like Jamie Oliver have worked out that migrants are basically more willing to be exploited and therefore are economically more sensible to employ.

The usual line trotted out is that these migrants are doing the jobs British people are unwilling to do but in reality a lot of these jobs have been created or changed on the basis that people coming here to work are simply more willing to put up with conditions that British workers shouldn't/ don't have to.The suggestion that British workers are 'wet behind the ears' just because they don't want to work 100 hour weeks for pitiful pay packets is pretty astounding in my opinion, there are only 168 hours in a week anyway!

People talk about this little mockney ****er having 'worked his way up from nothing' but I have to ask how much of his personal fortune has come from paying people crappy wages whilst charging high prices for poor food in his restaurants?

Not quite, and the quicker you get over your bias, the more successful you will likely to be.

There;s no indication that he's paying a crappy wage. He's highlighting the difference in work ethic. You can criticise him all you like. He's successful, and you're not

You're not successful either so presumably neither of our opinions count?

I'm happy with where I am at this stage in life. Definitely better off than most of my peers.

I thought it was fairly well known that wages in the catering trade are low anyway and Jamie's restaurants certainly aren't bucking that trend in any way.


It's comparative,. But not too bad.

http://www.caterer.com/salary-checker/average-catering-manager-salary

Being successful doesn't make people immune to criticism, he's not speaking objectively about the things he seems to care so much about.

He should stick to what he is good at

Like being a successful businessman and Chef

and that is cooking,

Actually it's business as well

his social commentary is just complete garbage.

Which rings true with a lot of people

Why talk about the size of people's televisions and try to paint an image of them eating nothing but chips and cheese from a Styrofoam container?


Because sadly, that's how many members of society gauge success. How big a TV they have.

People probably wouldn't be any less fat if they exclusively ate the stuff Jamie Oliver champions anyway.

They'd be healthier. There seems to be a link between people eating ready made meals and poor health

Would Jamie Oliver have been anywhere near as successful if he hadn't had some kind of lucky break on TV all those years ago?

Probably not, but you'll probably find he'd still be a lot more successful than somebody who started out to be a chef and decided to do the bare minimum. Luck always comes into it, but hard work does generally tend to get rewarded, as does raw talent.

I don't think it's so much the hours but rather what those hours entail.

You usually get little or no break all day, you're on your feet all day in a very hot and uncomfortable environment and under constant pressure to meet deadlines all day long.

Of the 30 people that started my college class in professional cookery, within 2 years, 4 were still chefs. I've worked in places where we would get through 3/4 chefs a week. It's a really tough job with many young people getting into it with very little idea of what the reality of a life in a kitchen is like.

You can angry all you want to, but in life, you work hard at the start of your working career, get noticed and you get promoted. The higher up the chain you go, the pressure increases, but the work load can fall off a little.


He's just imparting his observations, and as I say, they're observations that ring true. I wouldn't be surprised if your attitude is very similar to a whole host of unemployed graduates expecting life to owe them something

Unless I'm mistaken, most foreign workers tend to be young men who have no one to support but themselves meaning they're able to be flexible when it comes to where they work, when they work, what conditions they're willing to accept and what salary they're willing to accept. Many foreigners are unaware of their rights and are far more likely to be exploited that the average British worker. They can't claim the same benefits as we can until a certain qualifying period. Some workers come from poor backgrounds and are willing to either graft for a while and return home a lot richer or graft in a low-paid job for 12 months knowing that they'll soon become entitled to a raft of social benefits if their income doesn't improve.

So loads of reasons why the foreign worker is percieved as being a harder worker or more willing to do the jobs that Brits won't do. And of course, these reasons are usually glossed over by anyone who supports the mass-immigration we've seen in the last 10 or so years.

You are mistaken. Most young foreign workers are men and women. Quite a few times with their family. But then again, most of the people unemployed at the moment tend to be young men and women. The difference is that some people have a good work ethic and some don't

You are mistaken. Most young foreign workers are men and women. Quite a few times with their family. But then again, most of the people unemployed at the moment tend to be young men and women. The difference is that some people have a good work ethic and some don't

There's a Polish guy on at that sums it up at 38:00 onwards nicely.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/benefits-britain-1949/4od#3562092

One man? srsly?

I'll agree that there are some British young people who want something for nothing and think they're entitled to well paying jobs without putting in the work. However, I'd go as far as to say the majority of young people these days don't look down their noses at menial jobs; one only has to visit the careers forum to see the number of young people desperate for any kind of job including cleaning, warehouse and factory work.

We also have the growing phenomenon of the unpaid internship - these are almost exclusively filled by British people. Young people are working for companies for free. This shows a willingness to start at the bottom and I think most realise they need to work hard to get to the top. You'll be hard pushed to find migrants working for nothing in order to build a career.

Migrant workers are tough and resilient in a more physical sense because the jobs they tend to do require manual labour (often because of the language barrier). British people tend to do more skilled work but I don't think this makes them 'lazy' - whose to say whether physically demanding with little responsibility are harder than more mentally/psychologically taxing jobs? Also someone else made a very valid point. Worker longer hours does not mean you are doing your job more diligently and it's often the case in certain jobs such as nursing and care, that bringing in migrant workers can and has led to negligence. Longer hours does not equal better.

i think thats what most people are actually getting at, young people expect to get high flying jobs with the snap of the finger [to make huge generalization and all ] and look down their noses at menial labor..