Comment by 12ian34
8 days ago
UK needs immigrants to increase stagnating productivity. this has been the case for decades and it's why no government has done, or will do anything serious to curb it.
8 days ago
UK needs immigrants to increase stagnating productivity. this has been the case for decades and it's why no government has done, or will do anything serious to curb it.
Only a small minority of immigrants to the UK come through the skilled visa pathway, even if the health & social care visa numbers were added.
See figure 1.3a - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migration-advisor...
Note that to the best of my knowledge, these numbers don't include the Afghan resettlement scheme which would further lower the proportion of employment driven visas.
Assuming these numbers are relevant and correct, there is a reason why qualified migrants prefer other countries.
If you were a French or a German doctor or an engineer, would you spend 3 months fighting with the Home Office for the questionable privilege of earning £50K per annum in a country where a half decent flat costs £2500 a month?
That chart is almost useless because it doesn't break down by settlement/non-settlement visa types.
Study visas do not have a pathway to settlement. Students paying through the nose for the privilege of staying for a few years to study and then leaving (or getting work visas like everyone else) is hardly a bad thing.
Somewhat annoyingly, this is the definition of long term immigrant per UN definitions cited in the report includes students:
"The use of the UN definition of long-term immigration means that whether someone should be counted as an immigrant or emigrant (and hence contribute to the net migration statistics) only becomes evident after 12 months.... Currently, the ONS publishes provisional estimates with a 5-month lag"
The discussion of international students is less relevant to employment related concerns, but still contributes to other aspects of population growth like rental housing demand or water consumption.
what about nurses and cleaners
I always find funny how the new, supposedly progressive, arguments in favor of mass immigration run so close to the ones given against when slavery was abolished, that society can only exist with cheap,exploitative, labor.
Who indeed will pick the cotton.
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Canada has legal immigration pathways for nurses, I don't see why any other country couldn't if there was strong demand. Gambling on illegal (and dangerous) border crossings to fill those sort of roles seems deeply irresponsible.
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The UK unemployment rate is 5%. That's around ~2 million people who are already here but can't find work.
Do you really mean to tell me that none of those people can work as cleaners?
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The only employment related categories on that report are the skilled worker visa and the health & care worker visa. I presume nurses would come under the latter.
For cleaners it's a little less clear which employment visa they'd have been more likely to use. Potentially either depending on the specifics of their job, their income and the precise definition of skilled worker.
„If we don‘t allow mass migration, who will pick the crops and wipe your mum‘s behind?“
How does immigration boost productivity? It's labor-saving automation and machinery investments that boost productivity. I would expect these to be driven mainly by labour scarcity. Growing the labour pool seems like it would drive exactly the opposite. As two examples, Japan has low immigration and an aging population and despite that its productivity has never been higher. By contrast Canada has had extremely high immigration and rapid population growth, and its productivity has flatlined since 2019.
Increasing the input labor results in more production.
Yes, but we're discussing productivity not production. Production is the numerator, but productivity also puts labour hours worked in the denominator.
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You're aware of the concept of "diminishing returns", right?
At the end of the day, you still have to have humans to both carry out certain labor tasks and consume the outputs of that labor. For example, having the ability to manufacture a car with minimal human intervention doesn't mean that you can ship steel to the stamping plant without human intervention, and it doesn't mean that the robot used to weld the car will buy one after it's built. And since "real" Americans/Canadians/Brits/etc. haven't made the babies to do the labor and consumption demanded by capital for almost 60 years now, the labor and consumption must be brought in some other way.
Ultimately you have to balance the incoming immigration with the demands that produces, and that's where a lot of countries fall short. For being as similar as they are, Americans and Canadians have radically different experiences and opinions on immigration from India, for example. Why? Americans mainly think of them as either business owners providing needed services (even if it's just as the stereotypical convenience store owner) or people working in cutting-edge and important industries, because that's who American immigration policy allows in from India. Canadians have far less charitable views, because over the last decade or so, Canadian immigration policy has been far less discriminatory. Whether it should or not, this produces social friction with people who have roots in the society that receives the immigration.
Then why has productivity never been more stagnant even though immigration has never been higher?
Here are some pointers:
https://niesr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/JC760-NIESR-O...
I don't think that should be the be-all and end-all overriding the natives qualms but regardless.....Is it increasing productivity? In nearby mainland European countries that doesn't appear the case.
We've had the highest levels of immigration ever in the last five years and productivity hasn't increased proportionally or much at all.
maybe it's not working, also maybe it is working but there are other confounding factors.
We have had more immigration every year since 97 than almost anyone could imagine prior to that, peaking at a million a year, productivity remains shit.
It's not about productivity, it's about the gross GDP numbers (and initially new labour were 100% OK with a demographic transformation project at the same time)
I'd rather live through a financial crisis than fascism, thanks.
The former can lead to the latter, 50/50 chance though.
Yes, but only total GDP goes up. GDP per person goes down.
GDP per capita in the UK is still lower than it was in 2008.
Gen Z have never experienced economic growth. They don't know what it means to get richer.
I remember when Gordon Brown promised "An end to boom and bust economics." I didn't that meant realise no more booms.
In the 90s in the UK, skilled working class tradesmen making huge amounts of money was such a stereotype that there was even a comedy character about it. I can't imagine seeing that happen again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loadsamoney
Not true in isolation. It depends on the productivity difference between the existing average and those being added.
So if you add more people, and gdp per capita goes down, you think it isn't due to the people being added?
This is the trojan horse as nothing has improved.
Welcome to the sticking plaster economy. This may be the economic orthodoxy, but it completely ignores the root causes of poor productivity - and ultimately leads to the state of xenophobia you're seeing today in Britain.
I don't disagree
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