Is immigration good for the UK economy.

Mr_Matey

Immigration is great.

"British food" is pretty poor, but thanks to immigration I can go out for Chinese, Thai, Indian, Italian, Japanese etc...
So I guess good for the economy as it encourages people to eat out more!
:beer:

bluey890

Wookster wrote: »

What??

You must have your wires crossed. Most African countries are incredibly wealthy (in terms of natural resources).

Its African leadership that is so blatantly the problem. Look at Zimbabwe (my native country), it has the second largest platinum deposits, significant gold deposits, diamonds, not to mention the agricultural potential (until some of the world's best farmers got brutally kicked off their land).

Imagine how poor African countries would be if they had low natural resource.
Or perhaps lack of resource would help to stop the infighting?

i8change

Migration Watch is a good source for info. as they question the Governments take on this issue using the Governments own official statistics:-
http://www.migrationwatch.co.uk/briefingPaper/document/20
Personally, I would prefer balanced migration which has some cross party support:-
http://www.balancedmigration.com/about.php
http://www.balancedmigration.com/ourcase.php

The need for change:

• According to Government statistics, one immigrant arrives every minute, and a new
  British passport is issued every three minutes. In England, a new home for
  immigrants needs to be built every six minutes; this will continue for the next
  20 years.
• Over the last ten years, almost three quarters of a million British people have left
  the UK and nearly 2.5 million immigrants have arrived. This rate of inflow is
  25 times higher than any previous period of immigration since the Norman
  Conquest in 1066.
• Contrary to public perceptions, most immigrants come from outside the European
  Union and asylum seekers are relatively few in number. In 2006, for example, only
  one third of foreign migrants were from the EU; and only 3% were successful
  asylum seekers.
• Thanks largely to the scale of immigration, England will soon become the most
  crowded country in Europe.
• The Government’s own figures show that the annual benefit of immigration to
  individuals in Britain is about 62 pence per head per week.
• Looking ahead, Government projections show that immigration will add about
  seven million to the population of England by 2031 – equivalent to seven cities the
  size of Birmingham.
• The centrepiece of the Government’s major reform of immigration is their Points
  Based System for work permits. However, this does not limit numbers.
• We propose that there should be a limit – not on the number of people who come to
  work here, but on those permitted to live here permanently.
• This would be a major step towards bringing down the number of immigrants who
  are given permission to settle here to approximately the number of British citizens
  who are emigrating. That is what we mean by Balanced Migration.

Balanced Migration would:

• Stabilise the population of the UK at about 65 million by mid-century (compared
  to 78.6 million now projected).
• Greatly reduce the pressures on our public services, infrastructure, environment and
  our society.
• Enable our economy to remain competitive.
• Encourage British firms to train British workers to address long term skills
  shortages.
• Greatly improve the prospects for integrating newcomers to our society.
• Reduce the drain of talented people from developing countries which need them
  more than we do.

woody01

I suppose they could trade out of a skip

Which is where most of their customers live

i8change

If you don't like the way this country is going, you can always emigrate and become an immigrant somewhere else.

No you can't:-
Your family are here.
The culture you are familiar with is here.
You probably don't speak their language.
Lots of countries like Australia or Canada either won't let you in unless you have skills they need, or you have to prove people from your own country cannot do the job before employing foreigners.
Unemployment is very high in Europe (Spain 17%, France not loads better)
You won't find many countries where they have targets and will give priority to jobs for you, as a minority, over their own population as in this appalling example
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/5369876.stm
This country is so expensive that you cannot work your !!!! off abroad knowing the foreign wages will buy you a lot when you get back home (a motivation advantage for the Polish here etc.)
I could go on. :mad:

Wookster

bluey890 wrote: »

Imagine how poor African countries would be if they had low natural resource.
Or perhaps lack of resource would help to stop the infighting?

The irony is (with a few exceptions) the more resources an African country has the poorer its people are. Prime examples of this are the DRC and Equatorial Guinea & Angola.

Exceptions are South Africa and Botswana.

Wookster

i8change wrote: »

No you can't:-
Your family are here.
The culture you are familiar with is here.
You probably don't speak their language.
Lots of countries like Australia or Canada either won't let you in unless you have skills they need, or you have to prove people from your own country cannot do the job before employing foreigners.
Unemployment is very high in Europe (Spain 17%, France not loads better)
You won't find many countries where they have targets and will give priority to jobs for you, as a minority, over their own population as in this appalling example
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/5369876.stm
This country is so expensive that you cannot work your !!!! off abroad knowing the foreign wages will buy you a lot when you get back home (a motivation advantage for the Polish here etc.)
I could go on. :mad:

People coming here face most of the same problems. English is spoken a lot of places but not everywhere and similarly, there is no preference on giving jobs to immigrants over locals (unless you include a bias towards Eastern Europeans, who by and large seem to have earned the reputation they have). As for languages, most continentals speak 2 or 3 languages, don't you think its time that we (the laggards of Europe) caught up to become competitive?

bluey890

I am a mix of 7 nationalities. Please do not turn this thread into a which nationality works harder debate.
There are IMO hard working and lazy people in all nationalities.

lostinrates

As someone who has benefitted from the ability to move between countries I wonder what the impact of ''closing the borders would be'' fom UK people working abroad and sending money home, very braodly speaking the British have good jobs abroad. We certainly saved while living outside UK to eventually spend here, just as we save here.

I hve concerns about resources, but I feel a ''closure of the borders'' would not be in our best interests and feel the issue is more complex than is usually portrayed as regards employment.

bluey890

Wookster wrote: »

People coming here face most of the same problems. English is spoken a lot of places but not everywhere and similarly, there is no preference on giving jobs to immigrants over locals (unless you include a bias towards Eastern Europeans, who by and large seem to have earned the reputation they have). As for languages, most continentals speak 2 or 3 languages, don't you think its time that we (the laggards of Europe) caught up to become competitive?

There is a distinction to be made between competitiveness and economic wealth.

e.g. China is a very competitive country (has lots of cheap labour). It doesn't mean that the Chinese population are wealthier than the less competitive Norwegians.