Why more immigrants when we have so many of our own young unemployed?

Judith Gillespie (Letters, 15 July), says that we need more immigrants to take the place of us soon-to-retire “baby boomers” and to pay for our pensions, especially since the Scottish birth rate has dropped from over 100,000 in the 1950s to around 50,000 today. But could we make use of our own people first?

In March 2017 there were 120,000 unemployed people in Scotland and 80,000 vacancies – 40,000 more unemployed than there are jobs. Youth unemployment rose 15,000 on 2016. Why can’t the 40,000 train to become teachers, nurses or tradesmen?

And – paying baby boomer pensions apart – aren’t we right to have a lower birth rate when greater automation will mean less work for humans? For example, it is estimated that driverless vehicles could cause the loss of 4.1 million jobs in America and the UK retail sector could shed 900,000 jobs by 2025.

Surely the answer lies in parenting and our education system and aligning our young people’s education with the industries that will require workers’ higher-skilled and higher-paid jobs. How many kids know that the average air traffic controller earns £51,000 a year?

A recent City and Guilds report says that if the 3 per cent of schoolchildren wanting to study psychology were accepted there would be 124,00 trained psychologists for 7,500 jobs in 2022.

Graduate lists show a minority of Scottish graduates, especially in the “hard” subjects, such as engineering and science. There is also a predominance of local, female, graduates in human relations, HSE and social science – not the engine-rooms of an economy.

My concern is that we have produced a generation of young people – often labelled “millennials” – who are wrongly advised and not challenged or encouraged by their parents, are given a dumbeddown education and are the reason for the growth in youth unemployment because they are not skilled or motivated enough to do the jobs or take on education or training.

The easy option for employers is to hire immigrants. This trend started long before the SNP came to power. They knew the problem; in fact, a soon-to-be senior minister (Kenny Macaskill) told me in 2006 that youngsters not in education, employment or training (Neets) were the biggest problem facing Scotland. They are now approaching 30 years old and the problem is still there.

I am all in favour of a proactive immigration policy to ensure we have people with the correct skills to enable our economy to flourish and an asylum regime that treats people well and gives them a chance in our country.

The long-term choice is stark: tackle our dumbeddown education systems, give people a reality check that hard graft at school, training and career is the only route, or write off our own people and bring in immigrants to do the jobs, double the housing problem and in the process not solve the pensions problem because their taxes will be paying for unemployable Scots’ benefits. ALLAN SUTHERLAND Willow Row, Stonehaven