Retirement (or Last of the Summer Wine)

Historically, Coventry has cried out for recruits in many industries and professions. In the pre-war years Dunlop built their new factory in Holbrooks and travelled to south Wales to recruit because they could not recruit enough people locally. Holbrooks soon developed a Welsh community which still exists, even if these modern Welshmen were born in Coventry. In the war years thousands of people were brought in to work in the war industries and many of them chose to remain. In the immediate post war years the city's working population was swelled with displaced persons from eastern Europe, plus folk from Ireland to rebuild the city and others from Scotland and all over the UK to work in industry. The government of the day also encouraged large numbers of immigrants to come to the UK from the British Commonwealth, and as Mick pointed out, they generally took on the lower paid tasks rejected by the local population. In more recent years we have seen a new influx of incomers from all over the world, and many of them are now the mainstay of virtually all of our service industries. Previously there were more jobs than people so we had a labour shortage. Now it seems that there are more jobs than people who are willing to work, so again we have a labour shortage. The big difference is that we now appear to have a third group, those who choose not to work. I expect that in the future the city will go on, as it always has, bringing in people to do the jobs.

Not Local, for a moment there I thought you were talking about Australia.