Especially if you work in retail or a fast food restaurant, they have retail shops and fast food chains in your home country, no? So why did you travel all the way here just to work somewhere you could’ve worked in your home country?
I know this sounds incredibly offensive but I’m honestly interested because the logic baffles me
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Because the pay and standard of living is much higher.
In my country, the hospitality job pays £300 a month, almost same prices. Is that logical enough?
I came for the music scene btw, not because of the jobs.
Not many people AIM to work in retail shops or fast food; it’s a case of getting whatever job you can to support yourself, whilst you try and get into the field that you want.
For a lot of people, the pay and the living standards here are higher than in their home country.
Also, some people are fleeing violence.
For some immigrants, coming to the UK for work is seen as a means to improve one’s English so that on returning home they are more valuable candidates for employment. Or because they love English culture and want to improve their English through immersion.
For another category of immigrants, there are UK firms which have a severe need for certain skills that the local labour force (allegedly) cannot meet and so they are allowed to recruit overseas.
It sounds more ignorant than offensive.
There’s plenty of reasons why people come to the UK and there’s plenty of reasons why people work on minimum wage jobs. Migrants however have the same reasons as locals why they work in retail and fast food. To earn money.
Because the UK is actually a pretty decent place to live compared with the lot of the world, although you’d never know that from reading Reddit.
One of two reasons or combination of both:
1. They didn’t come to the UK ‘to work’ but ‘to live’.
I would say this is the majority. This might be because their home country is not a good place to live for them. Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a shit hole – but just that it doesn’t suit their needs or lifestyle very well. And while they live they get a job in whatever works for them which could be retail.
2. The ‘same’ job is better or more abundant in the UK.
Yes there are people who come here specifically to work. Usually for more pay adjusted to living cost. But sometimes because it has more prestige or it could work as a good stepping stone for somewhere else.
Because most of us come from countries with lower standards of living? In the UK we are gonna get paid more for the same job.
This is anecdotal but I once lived with a Ukrainian air hostess for a budget airline, about 20 years ago. She wasn’t earning boatloads and she shared a flat in a shitty part of London with four others incl me.
She said that the wage she was earning as an air hostess was higher than a doctors wage in her home country.
I came for a year after I finished my studies and struggled to find a job. I saw a leaflet for an agency that organized hospitality work so thought at least I would be earning and getting an experience instead of being unemployed. I chose the UK as I was comfortable with the language. It was also very easy because of the free movement within the EU.
Worked in a pub and met my now husband, and what was supposed to be a year has now become nearly 19 years
Maybe their values align better with British values than the country they grew up in.
Americans are the largest number of migrant workers in the UK. I think, off the top of my head, aussies are next.
The lady who works in my local shop is Portuguese, she tells me she would only earn the equivalent of £800 in Portugal for the same job. I’m not sure if the miserable weather and lack of community makes up for higher wages. I’d rather sunshine and close knit community.