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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The benefits of immigration
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
Without immigration there would have been more jobs than people.
You say that like it's a bad thing. In such a market employers have to compete for employees rather than the other way around, which means increasing wages and better conditions.
The population of Scotland in 1939 was 5,006,700. The post-war baby boom pushed that up to 5,229,000 by 1971, but then it dropped to 5,083,000 in 1991, and by 1991 the population was older than it had been - more retired people than ever before. This was not a good situation. Immigration has pushed our population up to 5, 295,000 and our immigrants are younger. Over 8% of babies born here have an immigrant parent, good news when the birthrate would have been dropping without them. We need these people!
When I left University in the 1980s, the newspapers were talking about a demographic timebomb; an aging population with a declining birthrate. I don't know why English people didn't move up, but the fact is that they didn't, or at least not in sufficient numbers. Immigration has ended fears of a demographic timebomb for Scotland. Immigrants have been a huge benefit.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
I don't know why English people didn't move up, but the fact is that they didn't.
The weather?
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
I don't know why English people didn't move up, but the fact is that they didn't.
The weather?
It's really difficult to get people to move just from the south of England to the north of England. They don't know of it, and don't know about it. And for the most part they don't need to move because there'll be comparable jobs in the south to those in the north.
Most investment in jobs and infrastructure sticks in the south/south east of England. The important decisions are all made there (at least until very recently). Scotland is lovely, and I'd move if I could. In the medium term that's impossible due to the nature of Mrs Tor's job. But I know Scotland reasonably well, and I don't think the civilised world ends north of Watford Gap.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Could be! And who could blame them!
(cross posted - this is in reply to Baptist Trainfan)
[ 23. June 2016, 16:33: Message edited by: North East Quine ]
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
In the last census, 2011, 17% of Scotland's population was aged over 65, (4% over the age of 80) and that percentage would be higher had not an influx of immigrants boosted the number of younger people in the country. So one of the benefits of immigration is balancing out an aging population.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
The thistle and the maple leaf are emblems of the free.
There's another oatmeal savage everytime you turn around (Spirit of the West singing "The Old Sod", youtube). There's nearly as many Canadians of Scottish background as there are in Scotland.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
So, you increase wages and improve conditions ... how, exactly, does that stop people moving to the area because there are jobs available (and the pay and conditions are great)? Whatever you do about pay and conditions there will always be people who (in the words of Heseltine) will "get on their bike" and move to areas where there are jobs available, because as long as a job pays enough to cover the costs of moving (which are social as well as financial) that's a lot better than no job at all.
One of the reasons given for immigrant labour being necessary was the fact that Brits aren't prepared to do those jobs for the current wages on offer. Increase the wages on offer and British people will be more likely to do them.
And, if the oft repeated (but, I've yet to see demonstrated) assertion that locals aren't doing the jobs because the wages are too low is wrong? Then all you do is raise costs, and pay people willing to move more than they otherwise would get.
I guess the test will be the rise in the minimum wage to a "living wage". If that results in more local people taking up jobs and a reduction in migrant labour then that's quite strong evidence that low wages are a factor in the decision of local people not to do those jobs.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
In the last census, 2011, 17% of Scotland's population was aged over 65, (4% over the age of 80) and that percentage would be higher had not an influx of immigrants boosted the number of younger people in the country. So one of the benefits of immigration is balancing out an aging population.
Here is a nice demographic chart produced by the Scottish government. Scotland doesn't have an excess of over-65s: it has an entirely normal number of over-65s - the increase has been caused by an increase in the life expectancy. This isn't something you can fix with immigration (unless you plan to have exponentially-increasing immigration over time) - it's structural, and you have to accept that 20% of your population being over 65 is normal.
What Scotland predominantly has right now is a marked deficit of children.
(I should like to see that chart with immigrants to Scotland overlaid on it, so we can see how significantly immigrants change the shape of this distribution. From another source I discover that 7% of Scotland's population is foreign-born (which is low by European standards - England has about twice that). I'm guessing from context that "foreign born" doesn't include English people, but it's not terribly clear.)
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
The thistle and the maple leaf are emblems of the free.
There's another oatmeal savage everytime you turn around (Spirit of the West singing "The Old Sod", youtube). There's nearly as many Canadians of Scottish background as there are in Scotland.
I have relatives in Canada, in America, in Australia and Nepal. I was raised on stories of e.g. my great-great grandfather's sisters journey to Australia in the 1860s, leaving a land where my great great grandfather flailed gorse bushes to feed the cattle in the hungry years, and my great grandmother's brother's emigration to Canada when the City of Glasgow bank failed in the 1880s, and my great grandmother's siblings going to Wyoming for adventure in the 1910s, (my great great grandmother joined them when she was widowed, she's buried in Casper) and my mother's cousins, ten pound Poms when the tractors came and ploughmen weren't needed any more; brave and good people who worked hard in their new countries but never forgot their Scottish roots.
And I welcome the brave and good people now coming here, and I don't expect them to forget their roots or their heritage.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Scotland doesn't have an excess of over-65s: it has an entirely normal number of over-65s.
I should add that Scotland, like the rest of the UK, does have an excess of people born in the 60s, but they're not over 65 yet. They're the bulge centred on age 50 in the chart, and they are going to produce a temporary excess of over-65s starting in about 10 years time, and lasting for 15 or so years.
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
From another source I discover that 7% of Scotland's population is foreign-born (which is low by European standards - England has about twice that). I'm guessing from context that "foreign born" doesn't include English people, but it's not terribly clear.)
83% born in Scotland, 9% born in England, 1% born in Poland, 0.7% born in N Ireland, 0.5% born in India, 0.5% born in the republic of Ireland, 0.3% born in Wales, 5% born elsewhere.
( Source)
quote:
What Scotland predominantly has right now is a marked deficit of children.
How do we solve this problem, if not by immigrant children? How do we persuade Scottish / British families to have more children? If immigrant families want to raise children here, that must be a good thing?
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Jobs available v. unemployed figures is a complicated relationship that isn't easily expressed in a few sentences. Nor are the real problems involved easy fixes. It is much easier to complain about immigrants and lazy workers, especially as those complaining are most likely to be against measure that fix the problems anyway.
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Is talking of immigration a code shifted way of talking of "people not like us"? When I was young, my father instructed me to talk only English outside of the home, ensure to speak the right way (right accent) and never talk of family heritage. The goal was not to resemble eastern Europeans. But we aren't brown.
bing! bing! bing! We have a winnah!
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Hallellou, hallellou
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Truman White
Shipmate
# 17290
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Posted
@Alan Cresswell. On the ground in communities, the question isn't "immigration" as a theoretical concept, but about numbers of people in a geographical area and their impact. In some of the cities I work in I see both sides. Businesses and unis love migrants and the skills and culture they bring. Poorer communities equate migrants with waiting longer to see your doctor, competition for jobs, over crowded schools. We don't manage thus stuff well enough.
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
The issues of school places, and quality of education, waiting times to see doctors etc are unrelated to immigration. Those are entirely to do with lack of investment from government - if there were no immigrants there would still be too few doctors and schools, and too few jobs.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Truman White:
@Alan Cresswell. On the ground in communities, the question isn't "immigration" as a theoretical concept, but about numbers of people in a geographical area and their impact. In some of the cities I work in I see both sides. Businesses and unis love migrants and the skills and culture they bring. Poorer communities equate migrants with waiting longer to see your doctor, competition for jobs, over crowded schools. We don't manage thus stuff well enough.
No bullshit. The biggest strain on the welfare state are pensioners. They're the ones who are taking without contributing, they're the ones who are a drain on the NHS etc and so on.
Nobody is saying that pensioners are an unaffordable drain, but somehow the immigrant who is contributing more than they're taking suddenly is.
Funny that.
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arse
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
The problem with the unaffordability of benefits and the NHS is nothing at all to do with pensioners and only partly to do with immigrants.
Where pensions are concerned, the problem is that there is no national pension fund: people have had taken from them - there is no choice - sums of money which has been labelled National Insurance which is not only meant for part of it to fund their pension but implies that there is a fund. There isn't and all governments since the introduction of NI payments are guilty of crass incompetence for not having set one up; had they done so not only would there be some money ring-fenced for pensions but it also would have meant that the farcical under-funding of state pensions would have had to be faced head on. (And it should also be noted that the most generous pension scheme in the UK, for the civil service, has no fund but relies on pensions being paid from general taxation.)
The same is also true of the fiction that part of NI payments go to fund the NHS, but the real problem for the NHS starts with the old chestnut that people value something more if they have to pay for it. Yes, we're told that the NHS is paid for by NI contributions, but in practice most of us feel that it is "free" and there are plenty of people who express their lack of respect for it by missing appointments, refusing to look after their health, etc, etc, etc.
We'll leave the affordability of other benefits to another time ...
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
The problem with the unaffordability of benefits and the NHS is nothing at all to do with pensioners and only partly to do with immigrants.
Bullshit. Utter crap.
quote:
Where pensions are concerned, the problem is that there is no national pension fund: people have had taken from them - there is no choice - sums of money which has been labelled National Insurance which is not only meant for part of it to fund their pension but implies that there is a fund. There isn't and all governments since the introduction of NI payments are guilty of crass incompetence for not having set one up; had they done so not only would there be some money ring-fenced for pensions but it also would have meant that the farcical under-funding of state pensions would have had to be faced head on. (And it should also be noted that the most generous pension scheme in the UK, for the civil service, has no fund but relies on pensions being paid from general taxation.)
Sorry this is just wrong. Whilst people are working, they pay NI for the previous generation of pensioners. There is no large saving pot.
Today people live longer than ever before, hence pensioners are taking out far more than they ever did before. Pensioners are by far the biggest spend from the welfare state, just a fact.
quote:
The same is also true of the fiction that part of NI payments go to fund the NHS, but the real problem for the NHS starts with the old chestnut that people value something more if they have to pay for it. Yes, we're told that the NHS is paid for by NI contributions, but in practice most of us feel that it is "free" and there are plenty of people who express their lack of respect for it by missing appointments, refusing to look after their health, etc, etc, etc.
We'll leave the affordability of other benefits to another time ...
I'm too tired to respond to all this nonsense.
[ 24. June 2016, 08:07: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
quote:
Sorry this is just wrong. Whilst people are working, they pay NI for the previous generation of pensioners. There is no large saving pot.
Read my post again: you'll find that is precisely what I was saying - there is no pot and never has been. In effect National Insurance is nothing of the sort because it insures the payers against precisely nothing in that the contributions (should be called premiums) taken are not taken and invested to provide the cash to pay for the payees retirement, healthcare and other benefits.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Read my post again: you'll find that is precisely what I was saying - there is no pot and never has been. In effect National Insurance is nothing of the sort because it insures the payers against precisely nothing in that the contributions (should be called premiums) taken are not taken and invested to provide the cash to pay for the payees retirement, healthcare and other benefits.
So how does it connect to what you said about pensioners?
The fact is that we're all throwing money into the pot which is divided up by need. Pensioners need more than everyone else and take out far more than immigrants do.
In what imaginary world is this not the case?
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arse
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
I'm not saying that pensioners aren't taking more than anyone else, nor that they don't need it: what I'm saying is that they have paid into a system them they were assured would look after them and to reduce payments to a generation that was (wrongly) led to believe it had made insurance payments to cover their needs isn't fair or reasonable.
What we can do is start saying to people that health funding has to be re-thought - in fact we must because the present system is unsustainable. The spending on all health provision in the UK is well below that of other European countries, yet we expect the level of service that people get in places like France and Germany; either we need to say that X finite proportion of government money is available and so only Y treatments/conditions will be covered, or we need to have a contributory health insurance scheme so you see your GP and get your prescription but have to be in the scheme and claim back costs.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
I'm not saying that pensioners aren't taking more than anyone else, nor that they don't need it: what I'm saying is that they have paid into a system them they were assured would look after them and to reduce payments to a generation that was (wrongly) led to believe it had made insurance payments to cover their needs isn't fair or reasonable.
It isn't fair to ensure that pensioners get far more than pensioners ever have got ever before (and certainly more than the vast majority of them were promised when they were working).
I'm not saying that pensioners should get a worse deal, I'm just saying that it is a total lie to point the finger at immigrants when the spiralling costs to the public purse is not from them.
quote:
What we can do is start saying to people that health funding has to be re-thought - in fact we must because the present system is unsustainable. The spending on all health provision in the UK is well below that of other European countries, yet we expect the level of service that people get in places like France and Germany; either we need to say that X finite proportion of government money is available and so only Y treatments/conditions will be covered, or we need to have a contributory health insurance scheme so you see your GP and get your prescription but have to be in the scheme and claim back costs.
Go on then brainbox: who is going to pay for the spiralling costs of the elderly with fewer people in work?
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arse
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Truman White
Shipmate
# 17290
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Posted
@Mr Cheesy. Alright Mr C? Yeah, wth you all the way on the macro picture. Economically migrants are net contributors and mostly the NHS, social care and welfare budget (if you count pensions in welfare) goes on older people.
The issue that gets people worried is local not macro - fast influx of migrants. Too fans for the infrastructure to catch up. It's not ab issue in isolation - we have to manage internal population flows and the impact of longevity which includes a lump of people born just post war all hitting retirement age about the same time.
Where do you live?
I'm a fan of migration and migrants. You can get too much of a good thing in too short a space of time.
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
But, it's still a matter of providing local authorities with the necessary resources. These changes in the population are largely foreseeable, and can be prepared for if there is some money available - the problems arise when the only money available is increases in council tax income after the new people arrive, by which time building an extension on the local school is too late.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Truman White
Shipmate
# 17290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
But, it's still a matter of providing local authorities with the necessary resources. These changes in the population are largely foreseeable, and can be prepared for if there is some money available - the problems arise when the only money available is increases in council tax income after the new people arrive, by which time building an extension on the local school is too late.
Personally I recon you need something of both - better controls on migration and more local resources so we can integrate new population flows. Building an extra bit of a school is one thing - you then need trained teachers (yeah, OK you can bring them in from abroad ![[Smile]](smile.gif) ) - you've got pressure on transport, associate pollution, need to house people. It's a real challenge.
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
I'm not sure many people would want to discourage business growth. What would be the response of the people of any town to hear that a company wanted to build a new factory in town employing 500 people, but they were refused permission because controls on migration meant they wouldn't be able to get enough skilled staff? Especially when all that's needed is to build an extension to the local school (and hire a teacher or two), get an extra GP into the health centre and provide a bit of an incentive to get some more homes built.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I'm not sure many people would want to discourage business growth. What would be the response of the people of any town to hear that a company wanted to build a new factory in town employing 500 people, but they were refused permission because controls on migration meant they wouldn't be able to get enough skilled staff?
So perhaps I'm being dense here, but this factory isn't providing jobs that the town needs (because it needs to import workers), and the new people aren't filling holes in existing infrastructure (because it has to build new houses and school space). So to first order, isn't this local population growth by 500 families at constant per capita economics?
In that case, it's not making the existing townsfolk any better or worse off - it's just making the town bigger.
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
I was assuming that some of those jobs would be filled by locals - either currently employed elsewhere (and tempted to the new business by better wages and/or conditions) or unemployed. If I had a business and had two options for locations to set up, one where there are already businesses employing people with similar skills to who I need and one where there is no such existing skills base, I'd go one where the skills already exist.
Even if all the staff are from elsewhere, they will be spending money in local shops and bars, using the local gym and other facilities, employing local tradesmen to fit their new kitchen ... all bringing new money to the existing population.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
You are SO right Alan, BUT, as Julie Birchall identified a decade ago, if you don't keep the English; Kentish, Essex, East Anglian working class and their dependents on side, you're FUCKED.
[ 24. June 2016, 22:13: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I consider immigration to be universally beneficial...
1. immigration is good for the migrant... , if it wasn't they wouldn't have emigrated. It provides people with opportunities to work, to earn more than they would otherwise, or to study at better universities, to experience different cultures and see the world...
2. Immigration is good for the economy... Many immigrants fill vital roles within our societies that local people are unable to fill..
3. Immigration also brings cultural diversity. It allows people (if they wish) to experience a bit of the world without travelling. It has the potential to let people meet and know people of other cultures, other worldviews, to realise that "other" is just different not bad.
I think what you say is right, Alan, it's just not the whole story.
I'm sure that while you're in Japan you'll learn what you can of the language and experience the culture. Where some other people whose job took them there might live in an enclave of expats. There's a middle ground, of course. And not everyone is skilled at languages. But the cultural benefit to the migrant depends on a willingness to mix with the other, to partake of and contribute to the life of the host country.
I think there is indeed economic benefit in immigrants doing the jobs that the locals won't do at the going rate. And competing to do some of the jobs that the locals would do. But that doesn't mean that there aren't gainers and losers in the process. Or that the same benefits couldn't be gained in other ways. (Wasn't "on your bike" Tebbit rather than Heseltine ?)
And your experience of Japan wouldn't be "authentic" for you (and possibly not comfortable for the local Japanese) if the part of Japan you go to turns out to be too full of Americans, if the local culture really isn't there any more in the way it used to be.
I don't know what proportion of a community has to be formed by immigrants before there starts to be a loss of the original culture. Or at what point diminishing returns set in, when adding further immigrants from the same origin ceases to add to the rich cultural mix in an area, when the locals already have as much opportunity for intercultural interaction as they want.
So I agree with you that some proportion (?? 5% ?? 10% ??) of immigrants in an area can be a win-win. For the sort of reasons you say. If both immigrants and indigenous have a willingness to interact, and in a well-managed labour market.
And that applies equally to Us as emigrants abroad and to Them as immigrants in our home country.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Alan:
Re your town example:
--If the business is mostly going to hire immigrants, any way, it might make more sense to set up in the place with no similar businesses, because there'd be no competition.
--From what I understand about struggling, former factory towns here in the US, bringing in a new business that only uses a few locals and mostly brings in outside workers would be asking for trouble, and be rather cruel. (Not that you have any intention of that.) Even if it did boost whatever other local businesses that might be around.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Cod
Shipmate
# 2643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
:
4. Immigration is good for other nations. When people move from one country to another to find work this usually has two benefits to the original country. One, the costs of welfare and other support for unemployed people is reduced. And, two those migrants often send some of their earnings home to support their families. Both of these effects boost the national economy. In addition, people who travel abroad to study or for short term employment usually return home, bringing with them new skills, experience, business contacts etc to the benefit of their home country. As the economy grows then there is more work, the pressure to move elsewhere to find work decreases and net migration tends to flatten off. We've seen this in the UK recently, where the improvements in the Polish economy (which is still not strong, but definitely improving) now means that more people leave the UK for Poland than vice versa. Providing opportunities for immigrants to work and study is part of overseas development.
An awful lot of the brightest and best from what used to be known as the Third World up and leave for countries like Britain, e.g. to work in the health service. I suggest the view that this is clearly bad for the countries they leave who are deprived of the service of those people. I suggest that it's also bad for the UK if particular sectors become reliant on immigration rather than training up locals.
Another point that has been mentioned, albeit obliquely is that community stability also has a value. I used to live in Auckland, whose population, I believe is mostly from outside Auckland, and most of them from outside NZ. It made for a nice ethnic mix, but it made my street feel transient and not lived in. The neighbours were constantly changing. I suspect a good amount of what is written off as racism is in fact a perfectly understandable sense of loss that a community in which one felt grounded has flowed away like sand.
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
No matter how much the employers increase wages and improve conditions, the jobs aren't going to magically do themselves if there aren't people to do them.
That's a very good argument to make at the point when we have zero unemployment, or even at the point where we have more jobs available than unemployed people to fill them.
North East Quine's example was at a place and time where unemployment was effectively zero: that is, the only people unemployed were switching jobs or unable for various reasons to take the available jobs. (A job with anti-social hours is not really available to someone who is looking after small children.)
As regards immigrants lowering wages: in many cases, there are jobs which don't have to be done in a particular place: factory jobs, call centres, etc. If there are minimal limits on how the businesses can be moved about then immigration does nothing to increase the supply of labour and cut wages, because most of the labour supply is potentially available anyway. The worker in Yorkshire is competing against people in India and Romania whether the Indian or Romanian immigrates or stays put. In such cases, immigration may even increase wages somewhat by increasing the ability of workers to choose the most beneficial employer.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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