Migration Observatory have confirmed the Lord Rose view that there will be fewer migrants taking low paid jobs after Brexit, so pay will go up and more UK citizens will get jobs. Apparently according to the Remain brigade this is bad news! Most normal people see more employment and more pay for UK citizens as a good idea.
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March 11, 2016
That depends on how we exit unless freedom of movement is stopped as part of the deal then nothing changes on the wages front. I cannot see the EU accepting scrapping the freedom of movement whilst remaining in the market. Curtailment perhaps but that would not really solve the problem. So it has to be a clean break and trade with the EU outside like so many other countries do.
For me the pressure on wages is a good thing. I have explained why in previous comments. So is irreverent to the debate apart from it is populist and appeals to many so a good ploy to employ to get people to back leaving. Pity though that people are persuaded to leave for the wrong and for what I believe are harmful reasons.
Reply I want UK citizens to earn and enjoy rising wages. Its a crucial part of our campaign.There’s enough competition at home without inviting in 630,000 new workers each year from the EU or however many it really is.
March 11, 2016
Reply to reply. I agree I too want to see rising wages but not because they are artificially made to do so but because productivity is increasing. As for home grown competition there maybe the numbers for that but most of that number do not have the skills required to be able to compete. Addressing that would help but will never be the complete solution.
So some immigrants have to be welcomed in and it should be down businesses to select those from home and abroad who they wish to employ. It is business and the government’s job to vet those potential employees and ensure there are no undesirables amongst them. We want an expanding economy then we have to expand the workforce where ever it comes from to allow that to happen.
March 11, 2016
Perhaps I should have added it is UK businesses and government’s job…….. It is not up to the EU who we employ and from where.
March 12, 2016
” We want an expanding economy then we have to expand the workforce ”
What is the fundamental fuel to fuel this and where must it come from and what does that imply?
I emphasize ‘fundamental’.
March 11, 2016
Good to read Sweden taking Merkel to court for her stupid mass immigration policy. Further sex offences by immigrants in Sweden, immigrant crime soaring in Germany and Cameron thinks this will make us safer! Where is our PM? Still hanging on to the hem of her skirt?
Be aware JR, Cameron might be planning to stay to mitigate any vote to leave.
March 12, 2016
It seems that gender imbalance in Sweden, amongst the young (caused by largely male immigration) is higher even than China at 123 boys for every 100 girls.
March 13, 2016
But it is from the BBC! Have you suddenly started to believe what they say?
March 13, 2016
It is not just the BBC, papers have articles on the subjects as well
March 11, 2016
Some care is needed in making this argument.
Shutting overseas workers out to get pay up and price ourselves out of jobs is likely to harm our economic prospects-employing our own couch potatoes in jobs presently taken by low skilled immigrants would improve our economy.
Eventually wages could increase, yes, but that should be via lower taxes and costs on all workers due to lower benefits needed for couch potatoes, not because we feel we can price our labour up.
March 12, 2016
Well not really. Post Brexit we would only shut out the lower paid, less skilled workers and they are not at all a net asset in general. This as they cost far more in schooling, housing, the NHS, the police, benefits, roads, social services and all the other countless costs to the state. Far more than they will ever pay in. So they lower productivity and competitively of the country overall, after taking this into account.
March 13, 2016
That would mean “the lower paid, less skilled” cashiers, receptionists, sales assistants, school dinner ladies, school assistants, lower rank bank employees, mechanics, hospital care assistants and helpers, … “they are not at all a net asset in general”.
Do you have to be a drivelling Cambridge graduate to be considered a net asset”?
March 11, 2016
I have just looked into Vote Leave’s website. Deliberately, I didn’t read it deeply and carefully because ordinary voters won’t. I found it dull, verbose, disorganised and confusing. It was also humourless and amateurish. The design is feeble. Even the colour is bland. My parish magazine is better. I was completely unconvinced.
It told me little I might want to know, and a great deal I didn’t want to know. I gained the impression it had been written weeks ago and barely changed since.
Again and again we are told that people who are sympathetic to leaving are scared to put their votes where their hearts are because they fear the consequences. Many comments to this blog reflect this. Why has Vote Leave not taken it on board?
At the least – the very least – there must be an easily accessible page on the Vote Leave website giving a simple picture of the broad sunlit uplands Britain will enter on voting to Leave. Pay rises, as addressed in this post by Mr Redwood, should figure prominently. If Vote Leave doesn’t know how to do it, let them hire someone who does; I suggest a tabloid hack skilled in communicating with a mass audience.
As Charles Dickens used to urge his young journalists, “Brighten it! Brighten it!”
All the arguments in the world – and Mr Redwood has them all – will not win one vote unless this issue of confidence is firmly grasped. This referendum is not in the bag. You will lose it if you don’t take mass communication seriously.
March 11, 2016
If governments had forced the people to take the low paid jobs instead of paying them to stay on benefits then the industry would have not have been dependent on over sea workers, i have no fight with a points system which should be implemented after we leave the dreaded eu that way we get the people this great country needs, listening to Boris talk about leaving the dreaded eu at noon was a breath of fresh air
March 11, 2016
If people weren’t taking low paid jobs, and if those jobs needed to be done, in a normal employment market the wage rate for those jobs would have increased until they found the people to do them. As the wage rate for those jobs increased then the employer would have had to ensure the jobs were done with greater efficiency and productivity. Win win all round.
Unfortunately normal market pressures have been allowed to be circumvented with mass immigration, so we end up with low wage employment, that needs Government subsidies to make them a living wage, low productivity because employment costs are too low to make employers get the most of their workers, and high living costs because there are too many people chasing too few resources, like housing, which to me seems like lose lose all round.
March 12, 2016
I agree.
If agricultural workers were paid the living wage or perhaps more then perhaps more UK workers would appear. This of course would put the produce prices up for consumers but then perhaps they/we should be paying more for our food as it is now being a lower percentage of wages than ever before.
The desire to live as cheaply as possible is the root of many problems but globalisation has made sensible economic solutions very difficult.
March 11, 2016
Everything positive is bad news for the remainians. Anything which detracts from their doom and gloom campaign is poison.
If the only reason to remain is because the foreigners will be beastly to us then it’s time to go.
March 11, 2016
Being beastly is far easier with the EU laws & courts helping it all along.
March 11, 2016
Which should be good for the states finances as less needs to be handed out in in work welfare , and good for our economy, for higher labour costs should make businesses concentrate on getting better productivity.
March 11, 2016
Indeed it is simple and obvious just supply and demand. Also higher wages and fewer low paid will help the governments receipts and reduce the pressures and outgoings on schools the NHS etc. So they can then cut taxes for a change too.
March 11, 2016
Supply and demand laws will also assist with housing shortages, school places, dentists, doctors, road space……
March 11, 2016
Good to see the archbishop of Canterbury says we are not racist if we have concerns over the scale of immigration. I think I had worked that out for myself though thanks.
It is perhaps a shame we cannot say that of some religions many of which are little more than racism or sexism in fancy dress and with old books. Worse still they are now protected from fair comment by law.
March 11, 2016
Not really. The public sector has for years embedded into every application, every promotion and every inspection “equality” which in reality means suppression of thought and speech to drive Blaire’s mass immigration plan.mte alleged equality ruse actually preventing any opposition to his underhand, subversive plan to wreck our country.
Cameron’s mass immigration figures speak for themselves. Worse than under Labour! Prevents anyone knowing the true figures from HRMC. Runs out of parliament to prevent being asked a question about Turkey and all the implications of further mass immigration. He is still pretending he has achieved Fundamental reform to curbing migration from the EU! When are his party and the press going to challenge his lies and deceit? Thousands each day still streaming across into the EU, have they not heard of Cameron’s deal? Navy still acting as a ferry service rather than turn the boats back which will save lives in the long run.
March 11, 2016
Sounds logical, but what are we planning to do about the 600,000 in London and a further 1,400,000 (Interpolated) nationally, illegal immigrants who work below the radar of living or minimum wages often for national groups who have got here legally. Reading Ben Judah will tell you where to find them. If I am to believe what I read, (going to the right place ed) in the early hours, in a stream of white vans would allow the authorities to scoop them up and investigate the legality of their presence in the UK. (various industries probably employing illegals ed) You do not have to believe me, just read ” This is London, Life and Death in the World City “. It will make your hair stand on end. It should be compulsory reading for every politician.
March 11, 2016
The MOO report would be correct – but for the fact that mass migration is wanted by the UK ruling elite and that is the chief reason why we have it.
Lowering migration is a vote winner but let’s not kid ourselves that it will happen on BREXIT.
My own belief is that much of the EU’s problem is Britain’s welfare system and unpointed admission of unskilled migrant workers and that this won’t change on BREXIT (there are other reasons for leaving.)
To this elite (on both sides of politics) the UK working class is easily replaced. In fact we even see it apply to doctors and nurses in the NHS as well.
“The NHS wouldn’t function without migrants”
This is – and always has been – untrue. Part of the reason for the NHS crisis is that when our doctors and nurses demand pay and conditions they are told to lump it and so off they go – to Australia where they find that there is, in fact, a system that gives them exactly the lifestyle that they want. And they get this because their host country upholds its own culture and only imports the people it needs to fill genuine skills gaps.
This ‘on yer bike’ approach applies to so many trades,
“Well if they don’t like the pay and conditions in Britain then we’ll import people who will put up with it.”
And then, of course, there is the easily fiddled and lax welfare system. It’s not as though this approach comes cheap. In fact it’s bankrupting us and culturally suicidal.
So on BREXIT we need to change our whole attitude to how we treat our own people too.
BREXIT is about one thing really. And anyone who truly loves this country should vote for it. The only question should be this:
“Do you want a British government or an EU government, because you can’t have both.”
This is about British sovereignty and this really is our last chance to save it.
March 11, 2016
Indeed, they will surely not fluff it this time.
It is probably, as you say, their last chance.
March 12, 2016
You are not irreplaceable was the squawk…true. Replaceable by what was always my concern, not that I lost sleep over it. Leaving UK due to poor wages (tax, tax, tax) and management certainly pleased me..never mind the weather.
And it has truly morphed into a looney, lazy, liberal land in many places. It actually deserves to be governed from elsewhere. I hope that it doesn’t.
March 12, 2016
Colin,
It is the British government which deserves to be disbanded because it doesn’t deserve its people.
Its only purpose is as a cover for the EU. We need to get rid of one or the other sharpish.
March 11, 2016
I wonder what Mr Corbyn’s view on this is, his party purports to represent the low-paid ?
March 11, 2016
His party largely represent the (50% over paid and pensioned) unionised, state sector workers, the feckless and the unemployed.
March 11, 2016
Yet the chance of a Brexit has increased, judging from the polls.
March 11, 2016
What MOO say may well be true in theory. The UK unemployment level was 5.2% in December 2015. Some of this number are totally unfit for work and some due to disability are limited in what they can contribute, however keen they are to work.
Of the remainder, how many are employable, have a suitable education, work ethic ,and actually want to work. Apprenticeships are great and should be encouraged in all areas of work as should work experience while pupils are still at school.
To replace immigrants at the bottom end of the workforce I would suggest that there will have to be some form of compulsion and motivation. There needs to be an acceptance that changing location may be a necessity. Mobility has always been a feature within the workforce, but needs to be encouraged where it has not been. It will not be a simple case of saying no more immigrants and the unemployed UK workforce taking up the slack. If workers can travel from Poland and Romania to the UK to find work, then our unemployed should be able to travel from Birmingham to East Anglia or wherever the work is available.
March 11, 2016
It’s all wrong to expect UK citizens to work for third world countries’ wages just to keep the CBI happy. Even arch Europhile Kenneth Clarke has stated openly that if companies can’t pay a decent wage to employees without the need for tax credits they shouldn’t be in business. Maximising profit should not be achieved by taxing the taxpayer further.
More migrants is the never ending cry of the CBI (trade union for large orgs.) but do they factor in the other costs that around 300,000 arriving annually will incur. Keeping going down this path and the nation will go bankcrupt.
I appreciate that the various Leave campaigns want to sell the positives should we vote to leave but with the PM and others still pushing the fear factor as hard as they can maybe it’s time to address this with the fear of returning a Remain vote.
I don’t think the PM realises just how much damage he has done to the Con. Party or for that matter cares as he seems to be on some crazed mission to keep us tied to a club that is tearing itself apart. Many of the other EU countries can’t escape the clutches of Brussels but we can and for some reason our PM sees our future in this chaotic failing project.
It was good to learn that the Migration Observatory sees a better future re jobs and wages if we leave. Let’s hope our print media run with it as our BBC will no doubt keep this under wraps.
March 12, 2016
The one thing that got the PM his Parliamentary majority (which I don’t believe he wanted) was a promise of an EU referendum.
Well one thing that we can be sure of is that Conservative voters who want to stay in the EU don’t want a referendum ! The result must have been a shock.
The PM had to offer it in order to wrest lost voters from UKIP and so they came back. (No respect from the back bench Conservatives for what UKIP did for them btw)
And then he offers visa free travel to Turkey and delivers us record levels of immigration (based on that reported) – and then refuses to tell us the true levels of migration (as the Daily Mail demands today.)
I am extremely sceptical about ANY Conservative. Not just our PM.
March 12, 2016
To clarify my post at 6.26 – the PM has wilfully gone against the expressed desire of the people who gave him his majority.
I can even cite staunchly europhile constituencies where he has parachuted europhile MPs.
The man does not stand for Britain. He stands for the EU but doesn’t have the honesty to proudly fly its flag at conventions.
If you are europhile then be proud of it.
If you can’t be proud of being europhile then don’t be europhile !*
*I post anonymously. And I admit I am proud to be British but in fear at the same time. Is the PM in fear too ?
That we might be in fear of our respective positions says it all really.
The EU does not make for happiness.
March 12, 2016
I can even cite staunchly europhile constituencies where he has parachuted europhile MPs.
Should read:
I can even cite staunchly *eurosceptic* constituencies where he has parachuted europhile MPs.
March 11, 2016
Mr. D. Trump is doing a great job, so are you.
March 12, 2016
oops..prepare for much abuse! You are right though.
March 12, 2016
Erm. Donald Trump is really saying it like it is.
March 11, 2016
I had a quick look at the Migration Observatory website but merely came across briefing papers that appear to say that the effect of a Brexit would be relatively small in the medium to long term, and when wages are depressed by inward migration it seems to be very small (around the 0.5% mark). I’m probably looking at the wrong paper(s) so perhaps you can tell us which of their papers you have cited?
March 12, 2016
@JRs NON reply; Well as you do not seem able to give a citation reference to your headline, just the name of the paper you read would do, no need for a URL (and quite frankly this should have been in your original entry anyway)…
Am I being to critical, no, your adoring fans might like reading the “Me too” replies from other adoring fans John but we are not the people you need to convince!
March 12, 2016
Jerry – Our people could afford to work for much less as they wouldn’t be paying such high housing costs.
They would also be enjoying less pressurised resources and a higher standard of living. Though this might not be of primary concern to you.
March 13, 2016
@Anonymous; But according to you (a week or so ago) migrants are living 5 to a room in HMOs with many such rooms filled to bursting within each property, you seem to want it both ways, but if these migrants do actually have decent living accommodation in reasonably priced housing (most likely rented) two points; 1/. why can’t/couldn’t our own indigenous unemployed population have taken such work before the migrants even got to this country, 2/. why couldn’t our own indigenous unemployed population rent such homes – after all these migrants are earning no more than our own indigenous unemployed population would have done?
I’ll say it again, the migrant issue will not be sorted until our indigenous youth and twenty something’s start taking such work (and if that means living in a bedsit, ‘studio flat’ or even static caravan so be) and people like you stop giving our indigenous people the excuse of blaming migrants for what is basically -and lets be blunt about this- a bout of basic work-shyness. But then they have been promised the moon by our ruling politicos and education industry over the last 30 odd years, as politicos attempted to massage youth unemployment numbers and the (higher) education industry saw a way to expand by keeping the 16+ school-levers in education as long as possible.
I don’t always agree with Mr Lifelogic, nor do I agree with all the subjects he suggests are useless, but he is correct in saying that there are far to many worthless Uni’ and College courses being offered were at the end of the ‘degree’ there are no jobs paying a degree level salary but these youth (now clutching their qualifications) still expect what they have been promised and do not want to settle for anything less.
As for living standards, I’m not expecting the people to do anything in their youth and formative years that anyone reading this site of a certain age group would not have been expected to do 40 plus years ago in similar circumstances. You @Anonymous, on the other hand, seem to think that a higher standard of living should be a given, served on a silver plater, not something that needs to be created by way of hard graft, and thus in your rush to blame migrants for our indigenous socio-economic problems you come over sounding more like someone spouting hard left views, although the latter would find their scapegoats in the ‘rich’ and the ‘well connected’, not economic migrants.
March 16, 2016
Jerry, thanks for that. I have a son with a “low” chemistry degree who was unable for three years to find a job really related to his studies. After much “family discussion”, he decided to try something else, moving out of the family home, sharing an apartment, first volunteering, then getting a job as a bookshop assistant with reasonable expectation of moving soon to bookshop manager.
As you said, it is all too easy, specially when you are of a certain age, possibly having been to university for free at a time when jobs were (relatively) easy to find, to read the DM and to consider that the present problems are all connected to migrants. Those migrants (sometimes with good qualifications) have been taking a lot of low-paid jobs, but jobs that a non-negligible number of British youth would not touch with a barge pole.
And despite some of other contributors’ considerations, these low-paid jobs are what make the present society go along. In the extreme, what would the NHS be without all the non-British born staff? Even in my South-East England BUPA centre, they make a sizeable part of the staff.
March 12, 2016
http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/labour-market-effects-immigration
UK research suggests that immigration has a small impact on average wages of existing workers but more significant effects along the wage distribution: low-wage workers lose while medium and high-paid workers gain.
The impacts of immigration on the labour market critically depend on the skills of migrants, the skills of existing workers, and the characteristics of the host economy. They also differ between the short and long run when the economy and labour demand can adjust to the increase in labour supply. The immediate short run effects of immigration on the wages and employment of existing workers depend particularly on the extent to which migrants have skills that are substitutes or complements to those of existing workers (e.g. Borjas 1995). If the skills of migrants and existing workers are substitutes, immigration can be expected to increase competition in the labour market and drive down wages in the short run. The closer the substitute, the greater the adverse wage effects will be.
Admittedly the whole site is couched in so many caveats to be meaningless and could be used by either side.
I tend to agree with Mr Redwood though, most times anecdotal and self experienced evidence trumps whichever presentation the empirical data is given.
March 11, 2016
Fantastic news! Just like a fart, better out than in.
March 12, 2016
John – Your succinct comment shows those who prefer to write wordy essays how it should be done.
This referendum will get down and dirty and will be won on the battle of the soundbite though I don’t think it will cut the mustard. (Dijon, perhaps ?)
With the exemption of Stephen Hawkins I dislike any one of the Remains. I reckon Stephen Hawkins’ communication pad was hacked by Peter Mandelson – or more likely one of his teenage acolytes.
A man used to pushing the frontiers of Quantum Science can’t be blamed for having his mind addled beyond comprehending this earthly realm.
Paaaarp !
March 11, 2016
Back in December 2013 Cameron argued that the transitional controls which could be applied to new EU member states should be revised:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/10532152/Ill-veto-new-EU-states-unless-we-deal-with-mass-migration-pledges-David-Cameron.html
“David Cameron will veto any countries from joining the European Union unless long term and tighter restrictions are imposed on them to prevent another “vast migration” of people from Eastern Europe into Britain.
The Prime Minister made his pledge following talks in Brussels on the future of European enlargement as Turkey, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Albania line up to begin negotiations to join the EU.
He told a summit of Europe’s leaders that any “accession treaty” given to a new EU member state would require unanimous support and that Britain would wield a veto unless tougher controls were imposed on free movement.
The need for unanimity meant there was “a real opportunity” to “insist on a different approach”, he said.
Mr Cameron said EU members had to “look very carefully” at the “transitional controls” it puts in place for countries joining the union, as he did not “want to see… what has happened in the past, with these vast movements of people”.
If new membership is offered to any of the potential entrants, which are all much poorer countries than the western European average, Britain would insist upon lengthy restrictions that go beyond the seven-year controls on free movement.
“Transitional controls have been a success,” said Mr Cameron. “It has not been a success when countries have not applied transitional controls. And, as I am arguing, we need to go one step further and look at more robust transitional controls in the future.”
EU officials confirmed that it would be possible for Britain to require free movement restrictions for an indefinite period or “as long as you like” as part of the conditions of a future accession treaty.
“Linking transitional controls to the percentage of GDP or wage rates in a new member state would probably require treaty change,” said an EU source.”
So what happened to that idea? And why did Cameron wait until after Parliament had approved the accession of Croatia on the standard terms before raising it?
March 12, 2016
And what is the answer, JR?
March 11, 2016
Strictly speaking, a logics problem: “fewer migrant taking low paid jobs” simply signifies that these low paid jobs might/will go to UK citizens. There is nothing proving that the jobs will suddenly been paid more.
Who do you try to convince, given that many at the top in the industry and services have been for years against the minimum wage and even more against any meaningful living wage.
I am very disappointed with you if after Oxford you can make such a logical blunder.
Reply. Supply and demand. Fewer people wanting to jobs so higher price.
March 12, 2016
@JR reply; Supply and demand. If wage costs are to high in the UK compared to elsewhere, meaning purchasers will simply buy their ‘widgets’ from a cheaper source, result, no jobs and no factories in the UK making widgets. Unless of course we start talking about import tariffs…
Can we please just stop promising “Jam Tomorrow”, for goodness sake people are not daft (unless they have been lied to…), getting on for 40 years we have had Monetarist theory feed to us, telling us that wages have to be low(er) so to allow us to be competitive in a world market – now we are being sold our Brexit dream upon Trade Union styled waged demands last seen in the mid 1970s.
March 12, 2016
In addition to the reply:
Lower pressure on resources such as housing would mean that a reduced workforce wouldn’t need to be paid as much.
March 12, 2016
Yes, the usual mechanistic view, which time and time again has been shown not to quite work. Economics 101, anybody?
March 12, 2016
J.R.
At the bottom end of the market , it is unlikely that there will ever be a shortage of suitable workers .
Thus employers will never need to raise wages .
Currently , in industries like catering and hotels employers can get a better foreign employee for the same price as a less able British employee .
* better as in ; younger , better looking , smarter , less worn out , better educated , more highly qualified .
These sort of jobs ought to have been reserved for less able British citizens who are totally reliant on them .
March 12, 2016
With a UK population of more than 60 million there will always be an excess of supply.
March 12, 2016
The Daily Mail is demanding that the true figures on immigration are released by the government. Will we be told them before June 23rd ?
March 12, 2016
@Anonymous; If Cameron and the BSE group had any sense they would publish the figures as all it will do once people like the Daily Maul start into their usual rants it will make the Brexit side look like a bunch of xenophobes even if the majority are not. Migration is not the issue, as I have been told many times before on here, it is about who runs and rules the UK, a UK elected government or eurocrats in Brussels.
March 12, 2016
Okay. Guess not then.
March 12, 2016
There is a problem here: the UK was certainly the major power in the 19th century. Things have gone downward ever since. Are Canada, Norway or Switzerland such “little” powers?
Having had the opportunity to spend two years in Canada at the end of the ’70s, it felt rather better than Britain at the time. And in terms of purchasing power parity, there is not much difference right now.
So you may still have some illusion/delusion of grandeur, but I would not be so fearful to go and live in any one of these “little” powers.