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Migration and Unemployment

Dole queue
Does the opening of the British economy to 589,000 new migrants every year displace British citizens from work?  David Cameron asks us to destroy our countryside with fracking and housing to create more jobs but who gets these jobs?

Contractors have long complained of being substituted by cheaper foreign labour (see for instance Disappointment at the findings of the Migration Advisory Committee).  Apart from disappointing contractors the Migration Advisory Committee has also produced a report on the overall impact of immigration entitled: The Analysis of the Impacts of Migration.   Although flawed (see note below) the report still contains interesting information.

The report reviews the literature on the effect of migration on unemployment in the prosperous noughties and it suggests that somewhere between 0 and 20 local jobs are lost per hundred migrants employed.  This figure is not surprising for a prosperous economy and any displacement of local workers would be transient if the economy were truly prosperous.  However, in the current recession the report  estimates that every 100 foreign migrants displace 30 local workers.  Again this figure is not surprising.

In the period 2004 to 2010 the number of UK Born workers in employment fell by 334,000 to be replaced by foreign born workers.  As it says on page 38 of the ONS publication: Economic and Labour Market Review Dec 2010:

"..foreign born workers have been an increasing proportion of total UK employment. This is partly due to the strong rise in employment of foreign born workers in the periods of rising employment, and also the large fall in the employment of UK born workers during the economic downturn. As a consequence, of the total increase of 966,000 in employment between 2004 Q1 and 2010 Q3, UK born in employment fell by 334,000 whilst the foreign born in
UK employment rose by 1.297 million. Of these, 530,000 were born in the group of EUA8 countries." .

In 2011 more detailed statistics became available.  According to the Office of National Statistics 114,000 of the migrants who entered the UK in the year ending 2011  - about 30,000 per quarter - had definite jobs in the UK (see Migration Statistics Reference Tables ).   A further 70,000 were looking for work and most probably entered part-time employment.  A further 250,000 students entered the country of whom a large number stay in the UK after studies, at least 40,000 of these take up graduate employment in the UK.  Overall at least 40,000 full time jobs go to migrants every quarter.  If this rate of accumulating foreign labour has continued it represents about 50% of new full time jobs reported in the Quarterly Labour Market Summary.  The effect of immigration explains why the fall in unemployment of around 50,000 was much less than the rise in numbers in employment of 160,000, both full and part-time, there being few new non-foreign entrants to the workforce in the quarter.

So the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this article is yes, migration is indeed depriving local people of work during the recession.  In a recession, where there is unemployment and hence a surplus local workforce, migration is removing about half of all new jobs and so substantially prolonging the agony of those who are unemployed.

Unemployment amongst graduates is 20% and amongst black men is 50%, can it really be the case that graduating foreigners are so much more qualified than native graduates and our black population so devoid of skill that foreigners are needed?  The government has some serious questions to answer, either it is providing education and training that is entirely unsuitable for the workplace or it has set up a labour market that favours foreigners over British citizens or both.

This immigration is a clear indication of faulty government labour policy.

It is only when politicians provide a regulated market that allows the continuous creation of independent new businesses and the abundance of employment that people can have freedom.   An excess supply of labour undermines  freedom itself.

Update: Cameron is asking people in Sussex to damage their beautiful countryside in the "National Interest" to provide jobs.  Keeping energy costs down to provide jobs will allow even more people from overseas to crowd our tiny island.  Do the people of Sussex really want to destroy their land for the benefit of foreigners?  There is no "National Interest" argument in favour of destroying the Sussex countryside, only the corporatist globalisers will benefit.  Don't be taken in, never vote Tory or Labour or Lib-Dem again.

See also:

The benefits of immigration to the UK economy

Immigration, House Prices and Boom Economics

The predicted population of Britain

The origins of the English

Note:  The report by the Migration Advisory Committee has obviously been polished to put a gloss on migration.  A good example of this gloss is that the report avoids putting any figure on the effect of at least 10% net increase in demand for housing (in all tiers) per annum due to migration in a housing market where, without migration, there would be a continually declining demand and hence falling prices. Incidentally, when considering the property market  the MAC report is insulting its readers by comparing new immigrant households with total new households rather than with net households (ie: allowing for the death of households). It would then be obvious that the Tories are continuing mass immigration to prop up asset values.


18/7/12

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