Immigration and the Economy

michaels

Immigration has been and undoubtedly remains good for the UK as a whole. The UK risks a demographic time bomb if we do not keep our demographic profile stable.

However the UK is a small island with limited space and has a poor record at building the infrastructure needed for its existing population let alone a growing population and I see no reason to think matters will ever improve.

A growing population with restricted infrastructure including housing leads to the problems all too evident today with overcrowded creaking infrastructure in transport, education and health and a very unfair redistribution of wealth away from workers towards the owners of assets.

Given these inherent limitations we need to trade off the advantages of immigration against the disadvantages of overcrowding. This means we should look to get maximum benefit from each immigrant we take in.

Within the EU we have no choice about the skills of those we take in so in order to cap overall immigration we hobble our economy with restrictions on computer scientists from India, medical personnel from the Philippines and South Africa and research students from china. Our universities are suffering because visas are restricted and graduates are forced to leave – all to keep immigration down to a reasonable total because we can not restrict unskilled migration from within the EU. Our globally ranked universities have already started to drop down the world rankings.

Allowing unskilled migration is also regressive, it suppresses the wages of the lowest skills whilst providing those higher up the income scale with services such as builders and cappuccinos that are artificially cheap.

And even today’s high volumes of EU migration might be dwarfed if for example there are structural problems within the EU – it is not impossible that Italy will see a bank collapse, if this happens all of the southern European countries may be thrust back into recession leading to a further surge in migration to the UK which we would have no power to control.

cells

I would think a few million unskilled migrants coming to the uk and pushing the natives up the skill and pay bands is better for us than a few million very skilled migrants coming to the uk and pushing the natives down the skill and pay bands

cells

cells wrote: »

I would think a few million unskilled migrants coming to the uk and pushing the natives up the skill and pay bands is better for us than a few million very skilled migrants coming to the uk and pushing the natives down the skill and pay bands

and given a proper accounting i think the two migrant groups contributions might not be all that different

sure the foreign engineer might be earning £50k and paying lots of tax but they pushed a local out of that position and down the skill list which needs to be accounted for. a foreign cleaner might be earning £15k and might even be in receipt of some benefits but they pushed a local up the skill chain which needs to be accounted for.

I really would like to see some detailed study about this shift in work/skills/pay of locals depending on the type of migrant that arrive it would be fascinating. anyone know of any? until i can read and learn more about this i think the safest bet would be to assume that the skill level of the migrant for the economy is almost irrelevant in that an able bodied full time working person effectively contributes the same in taxation irrespective of their job or pay due to this dislocation and movement of others in the workforce. again not saying this is true only talking it as likely until i find out for more definite one way or the other

CLAPTON

cells wrote: »

and given a proper accounting i think the two migrant groups contributions might not be all that different

sure the foreign engineer might be earning £50k and paying lots of tax but they pushed a local out of that position and down the skill list which needs to be accounted for. a foreign cleaner might be earning £15k and might even be in receipt of some benefits but they pushed a local up the skill chain which needs to be accounted for.

I really would like to see some detailed study about this shift in work/skills/pay of locals depending on the type of migrant that arrive it would be fascinating. anyone know of any? until i can read and learn more about this i think the safest bet would be to assume that the skill level of the migrant for the economy is almost irrelevant in that an able bodied full time working person effectively contributes the same in taxation irrespective of their job or pay due to this dislocation and movement of others in the workforce. again not saying this is true only talking it as likely until i find out for more definite one way or the other

amazing stuff

reminds me of some-one that argued the current account deficit (of the balance of payments ) doesn't matter because the total balances automatically.
Very elegently argued but rubbish of course.

bugslet

cells wrote: »

. a foreign cleaner might be earning £15k and might even be in receipt of some benefits but they pushed a local up the skill chain which needs to be accounted for.

Well, I suppose it might happen for some people, but back to the people I know about. If you are a truck driver, which frankly doesn't really require that much in the way of skills, more common sense and diplomacy, and your wages are suppressed by East EU labour, are you going to train to become a lawyer, or a civil engineer? No, you are going to sit around moaning about how you earn less than in 1985 and vote UKIP.

It might be a valid theory that people realise the only way to better themselves is to improve their skills, but the bottom line is that the majority are in unskilled jobs because that's what they are capable of.

cells

bugslet wrote: »

Well, I suppose it might happen for some people, but back to the people I know about. If you are a truck driver, which frankly doesn't really require that much in the way of skills, more common sense and diplomacy, and your wages are suppressed by East EU labour, are you going to train to become a lawyer, or a civil engineer? No, you are going to sit around moaning about how you earn less than in 1985 and vote UKIP.

It might be a valid theory that people realise the only way to better themselves is to improve their skills, but the bottom line is that the majority are in unskilled jobs because that's what they are capable of.

if you assume minimum wage jobs are unskilled then the vast majority are not on min wage unskilled jobs

the way I envisage it working is not that a current Asda checkout worker retrains as a top computer programmer but that there would be multiple up skills in the line. So the person who was sitting at the till scanning shopping might instead be working in a warehouse, the person who would be working in a warehouse would instead be working at a lower level office job, the person who would be working at the lower level office job might be in a different type of office work at a higher level, and so on

Remember there is also continuous churn in the workforce. I think its a little less than 1 million retire each year and a little more than 1 million join the workforce each year. with more migration (low skilled) we see the creation of a lot of jobs up and down the spectrum. Of the more than one million joining the workforce (mostly locals) there are now more higher paying scales available for them to fill and if the migrants are filling the lower levels that means they are not evenly filling the upper levels leaving them for the locals

kabayiri

cells wrote: »

I would think a few million unskilled migrants coming to the uk and pushing the natives up the skill and pay bands is better for us than a few million very skilled migrants coming to the uk and pushing the natives down the skill and pay bands

You only need 100,000 Chinese immigrants to transform a city like Vancouver.

https://youtu.be/fTPym5VHI4c

These new breed of pesky immigrants bring money and a propensity for high living. All yours for just $1.6m entry fee.

The downside of course is the longer queues at the Bentley salesroom or Prada checkout.

It's difficult to choose. Do we opt for Ming the Merciless and his penchant for high end consumer goods, or our mate Florin the Romanian we met courtesy of C5 -- poor old Florin arrived without even the means to house himself and his family of 5 kids for a couple of nights in a b&b.

cells

CLAPTON wrote: »

amazing stuff

reminds me of some-one that argued the current account deficit (of the balance of payments ) doesn't matter because the total balances automatically.
Very elegantly argued but rubbish of course.

Think of the opposite. Imagine over the next 10 years the migrants all go home. Lets say 3 million of them with jobs leave and take their families too

Well a lot of higher paying jobs will be eliminated. If you think of various jobs in various sectors more or less 10% will be eliminated at all levels as the population just shrank 10%. If the leaving people are mostly disproportionately employed in the lower level lower pay lower skill jobs then their leaving will have to displace remaining higher level higher pay workers into lower level lower pay jobs.

So 3 million low payed retail, hospitality, catering & cleaning staff leave, that destroys 3 million jobs all the way up the scale and the workers and economy readjust those now needless higher paying jobs (as the demand is lower for them) pushing higher people down various scales until some 2.7 million retail/hospitality/catering/cleaning positions are filled by people who would otherwise be in different higher scale jobs

kabayiri

In 10 years we can just employ C3PIO to replace those departing.

My mate R2D2 tells me that old C3 doesn't need a house; just a cupboard and a plug socket.

cells

kabayiri wrote: »

You only need 100,000 Chinese immigrants to transform a city like Vancouver.

https://youtu.be/fTPym5VHI4c

These new breed of pesky immigrants bring money and a propensity for high living. All yours for just $1.6m entry fee.

The downside of course is the longer queues at the Bentley salesroom or Prada checkout.

It's difficult to choose. Do we opt for Ming the Merciless and his penchant for high end consumer goods, or our mate Florin the Romanian we met courtesy of C5 -- poor old Florin arrived without even the means to house himself and his family of 5 kids for a couple of nights in a b&b.

interesting video. afaik the uk already does investment VISAs. I think there are two levels, £50k investments and £200k investments which really means that a lot of the worlds rich (and plenty of its middle class) can come to the uk if they know about the system and can speak an ok level of english (one of the criteria)

bugslet

cells wrote: »

if you assume minimum wage jobs are unskilled then the vast majority are not on min wage unskilled jobs

the way I envisage it working is not that a current Asda checkout worker retrains as a top computer programmer but that there would be multiple up skills in the line. So the person who was sitting at the till scanning shopping might instead be working in a warehouse, the person who would be working in a warehouse would instead be working at a lower level office job, the person who would be working at the lower level office job might be in a different type of office work at a higher level, and so on

Remember there is also continuous churn in the workforce. I think its a little less than 1 million retire each year and a little more than 1 million join the workforce each year. with more migration (low skilled) we see the creation of a lot of jobs up and down the spectrum. Of the more than one million joining the workforce (mostly locals) there are now more higher paying scales available for them to fill and if the migrants are filling the lower levels that means they are not evenly filling the upper levels leaving them for the locals

I see what you mean, but speaking about the people I know, it isn't going to happen in a meaningful way - at best they gain a notional increase in skills and pay. Warehouse work, some truck driving, basic admin, overall pay the same ( the difference being in the ability to earn overtime and other payments like night out ).

You have to be a self-starter to really make a change, and a lot of the low-skilled aren't. They'll just drift from one job to another of a broadly similar level, hoping they'll find an employer that treats them half decently.

In my job, I can be speaking with project managers in high tech blue chip corps one minute and a driver the next. I find that often the managers don't really get what it's like being at the bottom of the ladder, unless they themselves have come from that background.And there's no real reason for them to, drivers don't get what it's like to be management either.