Immigration does not cause rising unemployment

heathcote123

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

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?

So presumably if immigration was reversed, companies would just go belly up rather than employ local people?

It's not brain surgery is it? If you run a company that employs low skilled people, you're going to take immigrants as they will work for less, and probably turn up on time a bit more than the 'entitled' locals.

I have no idea what the optimum balance of immigrants is (and I'm sure highly skilled immigration is beneficial), but suggesting it's not displacing locals from low skilled manufacturing jobs etc just seems to fly in the face of common sense. It's PC nonsense.

I think the JSA workfare trials are a good start to address this - too many think they are owed a living for nothing.

I don't pretend to know the answer (though I think the JSA workfare trials are a good start), I'm sure a lot of immigration is beneficial, but to say it doesn't displace locals is PC nonsense.

The problem is both the high level of benefits available & immigration combining together to provide a native underclass that are becoming more entrenched by the year.

StevieJ

Graham_Devon wrote: »

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

I.e. some substance to add?

I would have thought that was obvious, they are consumers so they consume

ILW

StevieJ wrote: »

I would have thought that was obvious, they are consumers so they consume

That would apply to tourists. Their can be massive social costs from residents.

Any family with say 4 children and a household salary of say 20K is not an asset but a cost to an economy.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Graham_Devon wrote: »

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

I.e. some substance to add?

Oh, alrighty then, but only because you asked so nicely...;)

The 2007 cross department report "Economic and Fiscal Impact of Immigration" identified that immigration contributed to growth in the economy, that immigrants were a net financial benefit to society, and that employment and wages of native born population were enhanced by immigration.

As follows:

Immigration has clear benefits for both the
labour market and the economy as a whole.
Riley and Weale (2006) have estimated that the
economy grew by 5.3 per cent in 2004 and 2005
together. Of this, 0.9 percentage points can be
attributed to the direct effect of immigration.
That is, approximately 17 per cent of economic
growth during the period is attributable to
immigration.

And....

3.1.2 Immigration, along with greater labour force
participation among older people, has been a
key source of additional labour supply in recent
years. Concerns that native workers would
be displaced by migrant workers, especially
following the accession of the new member
states in 2004, seem ill-founded, as migrant
workers appear to have complementary skills
to the native labour force

And......

The earnings and employment propensities
of foreign-born workers are discussed in more
detail in Section 5.4 of this submission. This
suggests that, on average, migrants contribute
more to GDP than natives, so raising GDP
per head.

.

The same report also highlighted research which showed that immigration had a positive net benefit to wages.... although it caused wages for the lowest of earners to fall by 0.7p per hour, it increased wages for the median earner by 1.5p per hour, and for higher earners by 2.5p per hour.

Dustmann et al. (2007)
look at the wage impact of
immigration within the context of
overall wage growth for different groups of
workers. Over the period considered, the real
hourly wage grew by an average of 18 pence per
year at the fi rst decile. Without immigration,
this fi gure would have been 0.7 pence higher.
Further up the wage distribution, immigration
added about 1.5 pence per year to real hourly
wage growth at the median, and 2.3 pence at the
ninth decile. The authors conclude that the wage
effects at the low end of the wage distribution
are “very modest”. The paper also notes that the
National Minimum Wage (NMW) has played
an important role in insulating the wages of
lowpaid workers from a larger impact.

And with regards to contribution to the cost of services, etc, it turns out immigrants pay more in than they take out.

the net fiscal contribution
of an immigrant will be greater
than that of a non-immigrant. For migrants
of working age who enter the country this is
relatively clear; the UK is receiving the fiscal
contribution of their work, without paying for
the education and training that enables them
to work. Even for young children, by assuming
as we do that each age cohort is treated equally
through the fiscal system, then, in the long run,
migration to the UK is still likely to mean a net
fiscal transfer to the native population.

http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm72/7237/7237.pdf

StevieJ

ILW wrote: »

That would apply to tourists. Their can be massive social costs from residents.

Any family with say 4 children and a household salary of say 20K is not an asset but a cost to an economy.

Depend what skills they bring, The Hugenots are thought to have had had a big influence on our textile industries, (including wool, lace etc) when they came here.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

More recently.....

George Osborne's economic strategy rests on continued high levels of immigration to Britain – in contrast to the Conservatives' policy of cutting net migration down to the "tens of thousands".

The Government will find itself in the position of either having to allow continued immigration in the hundreds of thousands or jeopardising the country's economic recovery, according to its own fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Ministers will not reduce average annual immigration down to the "tens of thousands" over the course of this parliament according to the OBR's projections. Instead, net inward migration to Britain will remain at an average of 140,000 a year until 2016, it says, despite repeated promises from Conservative ministers that they will reduce immigration flows to substantially below these levels.

If ministers were to succeed in reducing immigration down to their target, the UK's growth would be damaged, the OBR's economists believe – acknowledging the role that immigration plays in Britain's economic health.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wanted-more-immigrants-to-boost-british-economy-6271541.html

ILW

StevieJ wrote: »

Depend what skills they bring, The Hugenots are thought to have had had a big influence on our textile industries, (including wool, lace etc) when they came here.

There were no benefits, NHS, LHA etc in them days. They tended to support themselves totally.

vax2002

The clue is in the first line "independent experts "
..Who just happen to work for the Government funded National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

Next !

Graham_Devon

Thats still nothing of substance Hamish.

HOW does more immigration add to economic growth and help employment?

I don't believe it does. Do these reports take account of ANY of the extra costs, on say, the NHS? Benefits system and expenditure?

Your snippets even talk of "member states", which leads me to believe it wasn't about the UK per se.

RenovationMan

Graham_Devon wrote: »

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

I.e. some substance to add?

Erm...., did you think that Hamish actually wrote the article?