If we vote for Brexit what happens

Generali

gfplux wrote: »

Good point.
In reality that Polish plumber will buy coffee in a coffee shop, Go to the pub and the hairdressers and be served by other EU nationals. Well that is how it seemed to me while on holiday in London.
As I have said before, where are the Brits who can do these jobs.

Working in other jobs.

It's not like the UK has a massive unemployment problem so if they're not serving you dinner perhaps they are in a higher wage job cooking you dinner or doing the accounts for the restaurant.

Filo25

The impression I always had was that a lot of young EU citizens came here and worked in relatively menial jobs while they improved their skills, employability and English, and then moved into higher paid roles.

Not that all come here to work in roles like that in the first place, I have an EU born citizen working for me in a role where they earn a fair bit more than the average wage for London.

At the very lowest rung of the skills ladder the minimum wage stops immigrants putting substantial downward pressure on wages anyway, any problems of surplus Labour should show up in much higher unemployment which isn't really happening to a significant degree at present.

Generali

For anyone that's interested in the actual measured effects of immigration on the labour market in the UK, this is probably the best place to start:

http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/labour-market-effects-immigration

There is a small depressive effect on the wages of the lowest paid (an increase via immigration of 1% of the labour force decreases wages of the worst paid 5% by 0.6% compared to their outcome in the absence of immigration).

As net immigration to the UK is about 1% of the population the maximum impact on the most heavily impacted each year is that their wages rise by 0.6% less than otherwise. Clearly there are two things that will in reality reduce the impact on those people:

1. Not all immigrants work (some are children/OAPs/SAHMs)
2. In-work benefits will top up those wages so the burden will fall on higher earners in the round as higher earners are net payers of tax and they also tend to benefit from immigration.

It's a fascinating piece and really worth reading right through. It contains empirical support for both sides of the argument regarding immigration and some quite surprising findings (e.g. the worst impacted by immigration is earlier immigrants!).

The main take away for me is that the impact of immigration on the receiving country is pretty small in economic terms. The bottom 5% might lose 0.6% of their income but that income is less than £10,000 a year so the loss is about a quid a week before benefits.

cells

CLAPTON wrote: »

It would clearly be an interesting economic debate to analyse what the demand and supply impact of immigration is, both on the receiving country and the sending country.
Is there any 'universal' economic arguments or do they all depend upon the specific situations.

Obviously not possible now, as all 'remain' will ignore any downside and all brexit will ignore benefits ; be to fair to myself I have often praised the range and number of new coffee bars and restaurants so I feel I am more objective than most here.

My guess is that first generation migrants are marginally less demanding so overall jobs are very marginally lower pay and quality. But even then it impacts them more so at the benefit of locals who get to skill up. The growing company factor that helps internal workers

Having said that I am fairly well off but my demands are probably no more than a migrants or a lower paid locals. Maybe we need to celebrate the anti MSEs that spend all they have rather than the misers like me that won't buy iplods

cells

CLAPTON wrote: »

In theory the exact opposite might be the case.
The increase flow of cheap young people can depress wages and remove any need for businesses to produce higher value goods and service or improve their productivity as they can make good profits from cheap labour.

The increase in imports could lead to a decline in the value of the pound so increasing our costs, decreasing our standard of living due to our increased dependency on imports and further reducing 'real' wages.
The need for increasing infrastructure will lead to increased taxes to pay for it, further reducing real take home pay.
The decline in the balance of trade will be funded by capital flows: like all effective borrowing, this is fine for now but will have to be paid for in the future by our children.
On the other hand the inflow of 1 million plumbers might spark a renaissance in entrepreneurial businesses and we become the one economy in the world.

You are reasonable enough that people give you time and space to air your own views but you do veer close to the ignore posters with some of what you type.

Infrastructure. Most infrasture is just utilised better. A prime example is our electricity infrastire. Population went from 60 million to 66 million but not only did we not need new power stations we also closed some becuase we had an overcapacity due to general improvements. This applies to virtually all infrastructure. Also the idea that infrastructure in a growing country is a burden rather than an opertunity is silly. If infrastructure was such a burden then no poor nation could become Roch which is silly. A growing population and the increased needs of some infrastructure is a bigger opertunity than it is a cost. The only real exception I can think of is roads and only where its already a problem eg like London whereas other palces like Telford its no problem.

You also miss the fact that some towns and regions are slow population growth or even negative. Without migrants what do you think Middlesbrough's which has had a fall on population would look like?

The balance of trade arguments is also mostly false. You keep saying that immigrants are poor so why do you think the immigrants would be importing more BMWs? You will jump to importing more food but food imports of base ingredients are so so cheap its only about £40 per capita per year to import all oitr base calorie needs. So you can't have it both ways. Either the migrants are poor low wage and just import £40 of food a year or they are rich pay lots of taxes and import £40,000 BMWs each year

The UK does not need to nor can it run a surplus in trade of goods becuase we have a surplus in services and a surplus in capital inflows (eg students spending £50k a year to study and love in London). But again a floating currency is the correction here. If the UK net imports of goods services and capital falls then the pound rises and we export less and import more and vice versa.

cells

Generali wrote: »

Working in other jobs.

It's not like the UK has a massive unemployment problem so if they're not serving you dinner perhaps they are in a higher wage job cooking you dinner or doing the accounts for the restaurant.

Exactly unemployment is about 5% but if you look at unemployed for more than 6 months its closer to 2% and some of that 2% will be fake (eg claiming while working in the black market) so really we do have v.low unemployment for those who want and try to get a job.

So if a million immigrants are doing the low paid low skilled work then by simple logic that means those who would be doing the low paid jobs such as cleaner and coffee servers are instead in higher skilled/paid jobs

If we import another million new migrants and they get low paid low skill jobs but unemployment still stays at 2% then the old low paid will have moved up a gear

cells

The biggest problem in the UK for the poor is that they accept it and just go with it rather than find something else.

I know its a lot easier to say get a better job than to do it but it must be possible. It isn't even the lowest end. I know one paralegal who is now a solicitor who worked for virtually free for 8 years. And an architect who was paid just £15k pa for about 5 years who was messed about with promises of better pay down the road and just threw in the towl when it was clear that the promises were not materialising and even if they did going from £15-16k was not going to be enough

So trying not to sound an !!!! but if you are low paid the answer isn't less migration or even the min wage going up by £1 its to get a better paid job.

mayonnaise

vivatifosi wrote: »

I am getting fed up with the b*ll*cks quotient from both sides now.

The remain campaign and Cameron with a ludicrous speech on how Europe is essential for security (when we all know that is NATO), vs the total idiocy of the Team Brexit saying that the EU encourages poverty (while neglecting to mention that the UK supports 1/3 of the world's tax havens).

Today's Telegraph headline:

EU to launch kettle and toaster crackdown after Brexit vote

It's getting ridiculous now.
I almost don't care anymore which way the vote will go. If the British populace chooses to be swayed by such ludicrous scaremongering, they deserve all they'll get in case of a brexit.

CLAPTON

cells wrote: »

The UK does not need to nor can it run a surplus in trade of goods becuase we have a surplus in services and a surplus in capital inflows (eg students spending £50k a year to study and love in London). But again a floating currency is the correction here. If the UK net imports of goods services and capital falls then the pound rises and we export less and import more and vice versa.

well argued as ever, but simply wrong.
you really would benefit from reading a book on macro economics and get away from your narrow accountancy approach.

Filo25

CLAPTON wrote: »

well argued as ever, but simply wrong.
you really would benefit from reading a book on macro economics and get away from your narrow accountancy approach.

Not sure if I'm missing something here, but cells post is pretty much what I have read before in many macroeconomics books, not in many accountancy ones though (given I am for my sins an accountant who did an Economics degree)