There is a lot of ridiculous hype in the newspapers about the numbers of foreigners taking up jobs in the UK. The Guardian presents some of the figures: In short (subtracting already the number of UK nationals born abroad who work back in the UK):
- Since 1997, 65% of new jobs in the UK for under-65s, have gone to foreign nationals.
There is something else that needs to be taken into account: The large numbers of British citizens who have taken jobs abroad since 1997 should be subtracted from the number of foreigners taking jobs here over the same period, giving us net data. In total, 6 million Brits live or work abroad (10% of us), and the number of British emigrants is increasing (it doubled from 2001, to 107000 people leaving in 2006).
The Guardian says 1.1 million new workers are foreign nationals. Some quick calculations (assuming that every year up to 2006 we have taken progressively less jobs abroad) reveals we could have taken 732 000 jobs abroad since 1997, meaning the net number is 400 000 jobs 'lost' to foreigners.
Yet it is not simply a case of foreigners 'taking' jobs because the economy is more complicated than that. Many jobs are created because of immigration and because of increased economic strength due to immigration. Those countries that have opened their borders fullest to new members of the EU (Britain, Sweden and Eire) have benefited overall, and the government says that such foreigners and their families pay more in tax than they receive in aid.
References:
- The Guardian "Higher figures for foreign workers undermine ministers' claims", http://www.guardian.co.uk/immigration/story/0,,2225600,00.html.
- "UK Immigration, Economics and Pensions" by Vexen Crabtree (2007)
- BBC News 2006 Dec 11: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6210358.stm
Supply and demand bebbeh.
Basically if you control the market you control the competition and any threat to your income. This is why managers often stick together, and will only turn on each other wen there is solid proof of mis-doings. It's about protecting jobs rather than getting it right.
Unfortunately this is what happens when a govt says it's ok to lie.
Their work ethic is fantastic fair enough, but all it's done is allowed the current climate to simply get worse.
There are other forces shaping the disparity between rich and poor, but, sociologists have bemoaned for quite a while that even in rich countries the difference is getting bigger!
And you wonder why kids these days don't bother. There's nothing to believe in so why bother?
In the worst case, the loss to England is merely a redistribution and equalisation of wealth with the poorer countries of the union. Though it may sting us in the short term, I consider that equality is in everyone's interest in the long run. And personally I like the Poles well enough not to begrudge them a little balancing-out.
But then again, facts are facts...
They also only make reference to "new jobs" rather than taking into account pre-existing jobs, which makes the statistics very bent out of proportion.
Did you see the hideous Daily Mail take on it? It riled me so much I made my first complaint to the Press Complaints Committee!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=501128&in_page_id=1770
Good luck with the PCC!
It would be great to be able to produce a program with decent researchers who could go through all the press front pages for a year and find out which Head lines turned out to be factualy inacurate (I guess 80%+ but that is a guess) and what front page articles turned out not to actualy show the full truth on the front page (About 50%+) and how many still bent the truth seriously on the inside page follow up article (Probably still quite a lot).
This year I had little time, but one year.
Getting my dancing shoes for that big ol' grave ;)
to be honest, uk does seem overcrowded, regardless of economics or by who. as for the rest of the world the population does keep increasing.
i pity the environment. the lack of wild habitat is shocking. animals are beautiful and deserve a break from the worldwide human rampage. do we have the right to preside over the extinction of any more species with our current level of bioscience knowledge?
from: gothicbeach.blogspot.com
Statistics help: Regarding emplyment in Finland here and crimes here, latter in Finnish. Shows mainly that the groups that integrate worst come from Middle East and Somalia and in other end are immigrants from within EU and USA who do as well or better than aboriginals.
But it is indeed shame that western countries choose rather to import cheap labor than raise the wages of lower end jobs. Aboriginals would do cleaning gladly if it would make enough to keep ones family in lower-middleclass.
A QUESTION PLEASE???
PLEASE...
ARE YOU IN CANADA THIS COMING WEEK APRIL 6 THRU APRIL 12, 2OO8?
DO YOU KNOW A FELLOW NAMED "TIM" FROM IOWA-USA? IS YOUR NAME GARY?
THANK YOU.
A RESPONSE TO SCOYLE@AVALON.NET