IMMIGRATION
Below is the copy of a recent article from the Daily Telegraph:
Unchecked immigration is putting Britons out of work
By David Green
Employment and unemployment are both up by nearly a quarter of a million. How can this be, when normally an increase in unemployment means a fall in the total number in work? Immigration, mainly from new EU members, is the main reason.
Should we worry about the wear and tear on the social fabric and pressure on public services that immigration brings? Or should we share Gordon Brown's view that immigration benefits the economy? Immigration produces both winners and losers, and I will argue that the losers deserve better.
This week's labour market statistics show that the number of people in work increased by 240,000 in the 12 months to June 2006 and that, over the same period, unemployment was up by 243,000. Immigration figures are always a long way behind and the latest statistics are for 2004, when net migration into the United Kingdom was 223,000.
The increase was mainly due to the number of people arriving with the intention of staying here for more than a year. The gross number of such arrivals was 582,000, the highest recorded. However, these figures do not fully reflect the increase in migration from the 10 countries that joined the EU in May 2004.
According to the Home Office Accession Monitoring Report, there were 392,000 applicants to the worker registration scheme from May 2004 to March 2006. More than 80 per cent were aged between 18 and 34 and came here to work, with some 97 per cent in full-time work. Worker registrations are not a measure of net migration, because we do not know how many have gone back, but it is the best figure we have.
The top 10 occupations of the EU migrant workers were low-skilled. More than one third were factory operatives, 10 per cent packers, nine per cent catering assistants, nine per cent warehouse operatives, followed by cleaners, farm workers, waiters, domestic workers, care assistants and sales assistants. The people feeling the impact of their competition in the labour market work in those sectors.
Whenever academic studies of the effect on wages of immigration have been carried out, the evidence has been that an increase in the supply of unskilled labour leads to a fall in wages for the low paid. For example, a study of the impact of migration into America between 1979 and 1995, by George Borjas of Harvard, concluded that immigration had reduced the wages of unskilled workers (those without American high-school diplomas) by five percentage points.
Mr Brown is keen on immigration, because he thinks it helps the economy. In particular, it keeps wage inflation down and thus helps to limit overall inflation. Without this dampening effect, the Chancellor's profligate spending, quite apart from his wasting of nearly ££2 billion on tax credit fraud, would undoubtedly have fuelled higher inflation.
But he ought to reflect on the impact of immigration on his own welfare policy. Soon after Labour came to power, the guiding principle of welfare policy was said to be "work for those who can, security for those who cannot".
Labour ministers have usually insisted that the best way to escape poverty is to have a job. So it is, but if the Government expects people to work their way out of poverty, should it not avoid making their task even harder?
Consider an 18-year-old, born with few advantages, perhaps with poor parents and no significant educational qualifications, but keen to find a job. Surely one aim of a welfare policy should be to ensure that anyone who is willing to work can flourish.
Among the hallmarks of a decent society is the possibility that the least fortunate can realistically hope for success through sheer hard work. In a society in which everyone matters, the pattern of disadvantage should not be exactly replicated from one generation to the next.
Governments are very far from being able to control all the factors that make for high or low wages, but they can control immigration, and allowing unfettered migration to drive down the wages of hard-working people is offering them a shabby reward for their efforts.
And where are the trade unions? It seems that their leaders have been captured by cosmopolitanism and care more for the purity of their internationalist credentials than for the daily bread of their members.
But the Government's betrayal of the poor does not stop at driving down wages. The net inflow of migrants in 2004 was the equivalent of adding the population of a city such as Nottingham, and the unprecedented influx of newcomers from overseas has inevitably had an impact on the availability of housing.
Over the past few years, average prices of new homes for first-time buyers have increased sharply, often putting home ownership out of their reach. According to a Halifax survey, the average house price rose from about ££86,000 in 2001 to ££177,000 today. Immigration is not the only cause, and the tendency to live in smaller households has played its part, but no honest voice denies that immigration is a major factor. Moreover, immigration can be controlled, whereas the rate of family breakdown and the desire to live alone are not so easily influenced by the Government.
Between 1996 and 2004, net international migration has averaged 140,000 a year, when the Government's household projections, which are used to estimate the demand for housing, were based on 65,000 per year.
As the respected think-tank Migration Watch UK has shown, using the Government's own figures, over the same period the housing stock fell short of household formation by 370,000 and about 70 per cent of this shortfall was the result of additional immigration. There has been an impact on social housing, too.
Between 1997 and 2005, 167,000 additional social and local authority homes were built. So far I have mentioned only immigration, but, over that same period, 216,000 people were given asylum or exceptional leave to remain. This figure alone exceeds the number of social homes constructed.
If we picture ourselves as members of a free society organised for the common good, some obligations follow. We willingly pay taxes to ensure that no one who falls on hard times will go unaided, so long as they have done their best to be self-reliant.
But if we expect people who may never earn more than a modest income to work hard if they can, are they not entitled in their turn to ask for a fair chance? Allowing an unchecked flow of workers from overseas is harmful to the members of society who can least afford it, and a more measured system of control is long overdue.
David Green is director of the think-tank Civitas
Unchecked immigration is putting Britons out of work
By David Green
Employment and unemployment are both up by nearly a quarter of a million. How can this be, when normally an increase in unemployment means a fall in the total number in work? Immigration, mainly from new EU members, is the main reason.
Should we worry about the wear and tear on the social fabric and pressure on public services that immigration brings? Or should we share Gordon Brown's view that immigration benefits the economy? Immigration produces both winners and losers, and I will argue that the losers deserve better.
This week's labour market statistics show that the number of people in work increased by 240,000 in the 12 months to June 2006 and that, over the same period, unemployment was up by 243,000. Immigration figures are always a long way behind and the latest statistics are for 2004, when net migration into the United Kingdom was 223,000.
The increase was mainly due to the number of people arriving with the intention of staying here for more than a year. The gross number of such arrivals was 582,000, the highest recorded. However, these figures do not fully reflect the increase in migration from the 10 countries that joined the EU in May 2004.
According to the Home Office Accession Monitoring Report, there were 392,000 applicants to the worker registration scheme from May 2004 to March 2006. More than 80 per cent were aged between 18 and 34 and came here to work, with some 97 per cent in full-time work. Worker registrations are not a measure of net migration, because we do not know how many have gone back, but it is the best figure we have.
The top 10 occupations of the EU migrant workers were low-skilled. More than one third were factory operatives, 10 per cent packers, nine per cent catering assistants, nine per cent warehouse operatives, followed by cleaners, farm workers, waiters, domestic workers, care assistants and sales assistants. The people feeling the impact of their competition in the labour market work in those sectors.
Whenever academic studies of the effect on wages of immigration have been carried out, the evidence has been that an increase in the supply of unskilled labour leads to a fall in wages for the low paid. For example, a study of the impact of migration into America between 1979 and 1995, by George Borjas of Harvard, concluded that immigration had reduced the wages of unskilled workers (those without American high-school diplomas) by five percentage points.
Mr Brown is keen on immigration, because he thinks it helps the economy. In particular, it keeps wage inflation down and thus helps to limit overall inflation. Without this dampening effect, the Chancellor's profligate spending, quite apart from his wasting of nearly ££2 billion on tax credit fraud, would undoubtedly have fuelled higher inflation.
But he ought to reflect on the impact of immigration on his own welfare policy. Soon after Labour came to power, the guiding principle of welfare policy was said to be "work for those who can, security for those who cannot".
Labour ministers have usually insisted that the best way to escape poverty is to have a job. So it is, but if the Government expects people to work their way out of poverty, should it not avoid making their task even harder?
Consider an 18-year-old, born with few advantages, perhaps with poor parents and no significant educational qualifications, but keen to find a job. Surely one aim of a welfare policy should be to ensure that anyone who is willing to work can flourish.
Among the hallmarks of a decent society is the possibility that the least fortunate can realistically hope for success through sheer hard work. In a society in which everyone matters, the pattern of disadvantage should not be exactly replicated from one generation to the next.
Governments are very far from being able to control all the factors that make for high or low wages, but they can control immigration, and allowing unfettered migration to drive down the wages of hard-working people is offering them a shabby reward for their efforts.
And where are the trade unions? It seems that their leaders have been captured by cosmopolitanism and care more for the purity of their internationalist credentials than for the daily bread of their members.
But the Government's betrayal of the poor does not stop at driving down wages. The net inflow of migrants in 2004 was the equivalent of adding the population of a city such as Nottingham, and the unprecedented influx of newcomers from overseas has inevitably had an impact on the availability of housing.
Over the past few years, average prices of new homes for first-time buyers have increased sharply, often putting home ownership out of their reach. According to a Halifax survey, the average house price rose from about ££86,000 in 2001 to ££177,000 today. Immigration is not the only cause, and the tendency to live in smaller households has played its part, but no honest voice denies that immigration is a major factor. Moreover, immigration can be controlled, whereas the rate of family breakdown and the desire to live alone are not so easily influenced by the Government.
Between 1996 and 2004, net international migration has averaged 140,000 a year, when the Government's household projections, which are used to estimate the demand for housing, were based on 65,000 per year.
As the respected think-tank Migration Watch UK has shown, using the Government's own figures, over the same period the housing stock fell short of household formation by 370,000 and about 70 per cent of this shortfall was the result of additional immigration. There has been an impact on social housing, too.
Between 1997 and 2005, 167,000 additional social and local authority homes were built. So far I have mentioned only immigration, but, over that same period, 216,000 people were given asylum or exceptional leave to remain. This figure alone exceeds the number of social homes constructed.
If we picture ourselves as members of a free society organised for the common good, some obligations follow. We willingly pay taxes to ensure that no one who falls on hard times will go unaided, so long as they have done their best to be self-reliant.
But if we expect people who may never earn more than a modest income to work hard if they can, are they not entitled in their turn to ask for a fair chance? Allowing an unchecked flow of workers from overseas is harmful to the members of society who can least afford it, and a more measured system of control is long overdue.
David Green is director of the think-tank Civitas
posted by erc @ 12:45 pm
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