Immigration does not cause rising unemployment

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

There is no link between rising immigration and rising unemployment, independent economists have found – contradicting persistent claims from anti-immigration activists and politicians that an influx of foreign nationals into the UK in recent years has led to more British-born workers on the dole.

The respected National Institute of Economic and Social Research found that there was "no association" between higher immigration and joblessness – even at times of recession or low growth of the sort that Britain is experiencing at the moment.

In fact, the Institute's researchers suggested that the opposite might be the case and that immigration acts as an economic stimulus, pushing total employment levels higher and dole claimant numbers lower than they would otherwise have been.

"Perhaps surprisingly," their economists said, "the interaction between migrant inflows and GDP emerges as positive, indicating that during periods of lower growth, migrant inflows are associated with ... slower [dole] claimant growth than would otherwise have occurred." The researchers did concede that the stimulating effects of migration on the overall labour market at a time of recession are likely to be small.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/immigration-does-not-cause-unemployment-6287404.html

Told you so....;)

wotsthat

OK. Immigration does not cause rising unemployment.

However, wouldn't it be better if instead of importing low skilled taxpayer subsidised labour we ensured that British born low skilled unemployed took low skilled jobs instead?

That way rather than unemployment not rising we might see it fall.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

wotsthat wrote: »

wouldn't it be better if instead of importing low skilled taxpayer subsidised labour we ensured that British born low skilled unemployed took low skilled jobs instead?

That way rather than unemployment not rising we might see it fall.

Immigration already causes it to fall, versus the level it would be at without immigration.

"immigration acts as an economic stimulus, pushing total employment levels higher and dole claimant numbers lower than they would otherwise have been."

If we had less immigration, more natives would be unemployed, so why would anyone want to reduce immigration?

Graham_Devon

Is there any substance to the claim that immigration is an economic stimulus?

I can see that more people requires more services. It will always be the case. But one single service can accomodate multiple numbers of people before it needs to expand and hire more services (people).

I.e. you don't need an extra nurse every time 2 immigrants settle in the UK. But you may need an extra nurse for 5,000 immigrants settling.

I'm just wondering what the substance is behind what they are saying, as I really can't see how immigration can be nuetral on employment or indeed, boost growth.

Either way there doesn't seem to be much evidence either way. Both reports seem to suggest that something "may or may not" happen. Both reports are using different timeframes to suggest there is a correlation in the figures.

In my own mind, I think it's only reasonable to suggest that the more people chasing jobs, the higher the unemployment. You can't create a job for every person that arrives. That person arriving has needs for services, but not enough to create a job or growth.

There is far too much reliance on figures swayed massively by a global recession to make any of the repots in any way meaningful. You need a constant over a good length of time to create measurements, but both reports seem to be trying to take measurements from volitile time frames that add weight to what they want the result to say.

wymondham

Completely confused by this ....... seems to be two completely conflicting results...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2084667/UK-unemployment-23-fewer-Britons-jobs-100-migrants.html

the_flying_pig

Immigration has many benefits.

But [as ever I sympathise, it’s only some poor journo trying to rush a story out etc] as a statement “immigration has little or no impact on employment or unemployment”” looks fairly obviously wrong.

Would immigration really have no impact on either employment ***or*** unemployment? It has to affect either one or the other, right?
Imagine [assuming away kids and the retired for now] a closed economy with 100m people in it, 90m employed & 10m unemployed.

Then import 5m immigrants. What’ll happen?

The Migration Watch view seems to be that there’ll still only be 90m jobs & that the 5m extra people will mean, one way or another, 15m unemployed.

An optimistic view is that immigration doesn’t affect unemployment [but does affect employment], & that the 5m new people will generate 5m new jobs, giving 95m jobs/workers, still 10m unemployed.

[a middling view would be that 5m immigrants create, say, 4m new jobs, giving an unemployed total of 11m]

A mega-optimistic view might be that immigration positively affects both employment and unemployment, & that the 5m new people generate more than 5m new jobs, say 10, giving 100m workers & only 5m unemployed.

But, mathematically, it’s quite a leap to suggest that immigration can somehow affect neither employment nor unemployment.

vivatifosi

wymondham wrote: »

Completely confused by this ....... seems to be two completely conflicting results...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2084667/UK-unemployment-23-fewer-Britons-jobs-100-migrants.html

I've heard both today too ((confused))...

the_flying_pig

These different studies have no doubt had a lot of thought put into them so it wouldn’t be sensible for us to second guess what the exact impact of immigration is from our armchairs.

My commonsense starter for ten would be that immigration will increase both employment and unemployment.

Unless you’re some kind of very unusual economy that’s of an inherently fixed size [say there’s only one economic activity, namely extracting oil from a single oil field, whereby adding more people to the population won’t enable more to be extracted], a bigger population means a bigger economy.

E.g. as countries Argentina and India have fairly similar total land masses but India has a bigger GDP simply because it has vastly more people in it.

But my starter for ten would be that adding immigrants won’t necessarily push the unemployment rate down – e.g. if the rate stays at 10% then there would be an awful lot more unemployed [as well as employed] people in a 100m pop UK than in a 60m pop UK.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

wymondham wrote: »

Completely confused by this ....... seems to be two completely conflicting results...

And bizarrely, even the Mail now seems to be conceding that immigrants are better for the environment, crime rate and national identity than the native born population.

Migrants have a negative impact on the UK road system through the use of their cars, although it is not as great as the impact made by the average UK-born individual as they tend to make less non-work journeys.

But crime rates were likely to go down as a result of migration because migrants were less likely to commit crime, the report said.

Migrant groups were also found to have more trust in British political institutions, and to express a higher sense of belonging to Britain than the average UK-born individual without any migrant heritage.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2084667/UK-unemployment-23-fewer-Britons-jobs-100-migrants.html#ixzz1j57I6SnX

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

And bizarrely, even the Mail now seems to be conceding that immigrants are better for the environment, crime rate and national identity than the native born population.

Do you have anything to add to how immigrants boost growth and employment in the UK?

I.e. some substance to add?

ILW

the_flying_pig wrote: »

These different studies have no doubt had a lot of thought put into them so it wouldn’t be sensible for us to second guess what the exact impact of immigration is from our armchairs.

My commonsense starter for ten would be that immigration will increase both employment and unemployment.

Unless you’re some kind of very unusual economy that’s of an inherently fixed size [say there’s only one economic activity, namely extracting oil from a single oil field, whereby adding more people to the population won’t enable more to be extracted], a bigger population means a bigger economy.

E.g. as countries Argentina and India have fairly similar total land masses but India has a bigger GDP simply because it has vastly more people in it.

But my starter for ten would be that adding immigrants won’t necessarily push the unemployment rate down – e.g. if the rate stays at 10% then there would be an awful lot more unemployed [as well as employed] people in a 100m pop UK than in a 60m pop UK.

Surely GDP is of little interest to most. It is how well an individual is faring that is what matters. Would not GDP divided by population be a much more meaningful figure. Never seems to be quoted though.