Migration into UK soars

[johnboy1975]

Presumably there's a consensus that controlled immigration is a good thing, and uncontrolled immigration is a bad thing?

I'd also like to think that non EU immigration IS controlled, and IS skills based, almost akin to the Aussie points system (ie we need doctors, if you are a doctor, in you come.....Plasterer? No mate sorry, we got shtloads of them (thanks EU), off you trot)

Probably hopelessly naive on both counts?

My take? EU immigration is driving down wages and taking unskilled jobs away from the unemployed, who don't want to do them anyway because they can get by on benefits.

[wc98]

NicD said:

Yes, but doesn't mean that all of us posters have to pretend to have the same limited understanding and lack of vision.

to be fair, i have basically accepted that removing the uk from the eu is just not a priority for the majority of the british public.
come the referendum i will vote out,but i expect the end result will be to stay in.

[JensenA]

johnboy1975 said:

My take? EU immigration is driving down wages and taking unskilled jobs away from the unemployed, who don't want to do them anyway because they can get by on benefits.

This is exactly what is happening. It's not just the unskilled factory type jobs, it's also the semi-skilled jobs too. I work in the motor trade, working in what are called Vehicle refurb centres, all the manufacturers and importers in the UK lease out their cars to businesses and rental companies, after 12 months the cars come back to these centres to be 'refurbed' - panels painted, full re sprays, etc etc, before going to the main dealers where they are sold as used cars. We had a pay rise in March this year, the first rise for 4 years, a massive rise of 20p an hour, so after a 50 hour week we were £10 better off - before tax. More and more of these centres are full of Poles and other East Europeans, earning double what they can earn back home. The English guys working there are normal hard working guys, family men with kids and mortgages, taking home £350 a week. The Poles come over here, they get a rented house together, 5 or 6 of them renting a house for £400 a month, so each of them are paying about £80 a month in rent, they are quite happy to bang in the hours, work overtime, because at the end of the day they go back home to their rented accommodation, it's just a place to sleep. The 'lazy' English workers aren't to keen to work overtime because they have a wife back home, working part time, and they need to get back home to look after the kids while wifey works in the evening.
The company I worked for lost the contract to refurb the cars, another company is taking over the contract in October, they are offering less pay than we were on before, they know they can get workers from Eastern Europe to do the job for less. Myself and a colleague jumped before we were pushed, and took a job in Portsmouth, 270 miles away. We now work and
live like the poles, we rent a double room in a house for £500 a month, work 15 hour days, 6 days a week and come home every 2 weeks. Were away from our homes, family and friends, earning a bit more money, but our overheads have increased, renting a room, a 600 mile commute every 2 weeks on top of the daily commute to work. I hate it, but I have to make a living, I need to work. We can't move down here, the work is temporary, and anyway, a house up here (N.Lincs) is under £100k, in Portsmouth a similar house is £250k. 2 poles have recently started, and they have already been asked to contact friends to come and work there as the company need more people and cannot recruit locally. Even companies
like Rolls Royce are full of Polish workers. The reason they recruit Poles is because the pay is to low for 'normal' English people to live on.
Stagecoach recently had a recruitment drive in Romania for London Bus drivers as they are unable to recruit local drivers in London. How can a London family man, provide for his family on £10.40 an hour? But a Romanian will take the job because it's 5 times more than he would earn back home, and if 5 of them rent a place they can live cheaply and survive quite comfortably.
Apologies for the long post, but this is reality, too many PH'ers seem to live in cloud cuckoo land and simply say 'UK people are lazy, they should retrain and get another profession'. Wages are being driven down, and if you're a business owner it's all good news isn't it. You can pay less in wages, and make more profits. Currently the East Europeans are driving down the wages in the semi skilled and unskilled sectors, but it will soon be East European IT Specialists, Dentists and Engineers.

[NicD]

Yes, it is the reason we have strict criteria on overseas workers,.... except from the EU. And of course EU could mean recently dished out EU passports to those with tenuous connections.

[anonymous-user]

JensenA said:

johnboy1975 said:

My take? EU immigration is driving down wages and taking unskilled jobs away from the unemployed, who don't want to do them anyway because they can get by on benefits.

This is exactly what is happening. It's not just the unskilled factory type jobs, it's also the semi-skilled jobs too. I work in the motor trade, working in what are called Vehicle refurb centres, all the manufacturers and importers in the UK lease out their cars to businesses and rental companies, after 12 months the cars come back to these centres to be 'refurbed' - panels painted, full re sprays, etc etc, before going to the main dealers where they are sold as used cars. We had a pay rise in March this year, the first rise for 4 years, a massive rise of 20p an hour, so after a 50 hour week we were £10 better off - before tax. More and more of these centres are full of Poles and other East Europeans, earning double what they can earn back home. The English guys working there are normal hard working guys, family men with kids and mortgages, taking home £350 a week. The Poles come over here, they get a rented house together, 5 or 6 of them renting a house for £400 a month, so each of them are paying about £80 a month in rent, they are quite happy to bang in the hours, work overtime, because at the end of the day they go back home to their rented accommodation, it's just a place to sleep. The 'lazy' English workers aren't to keen to work overtime because they have a wife back home, working part time, and they need to get back home to look after the kids while wifey works in the evening.
The company I worked for lost the contract to refurb the cars, another company is taking over the contract in October, they are offering less pay than we were on before, they know they can get workers from Eastern Europe to do the job for less. Myself and a colleague jumped before we were pushed, and took a job in Portsmouth, 270 miles away. We now work and
live like the poles, we rent a double room in a house for £500 a month, work 15 hour days, 6 days a week and come home every 2 weeks. Were away from our homes, family and friends, earning a bit more money, but our overheads have increased, renting a room, a 600 mile commute every 2 weeks on top of the daily commute to work. I hate it, but I have to make a living, I need to work. We can't move down here, the work is temporary, and anyway, a house up here (N.Lincs) is under £100k, in Portsmouth a similar house is £250k. 2 poles have recently started, and they have already been asked to contact friends to come and work there as the company need more people and cannot recruit locally. Even companies
like Rolls Royce are full of Polish workers. The reason they recruit Poles is because the pay is to low for 'normal' English people to live on.
Stagecoach recently had a recruitment drive in Romania for London Bus drivers as they are unable to recruit local drivers in London. How can a London family man, provide for his family on £10.40 an hour? But a Romanian will take the job because it's 5 times more than he would earn back home, and if 5 of them rent a place they can live cheaply and survive quite comfortably.
Apologies for the long post, but this is reality, too many PH'ers seem to live in cloud cuckoo land and simply say 'UK people are lazy, they should retrain and get another profession'. Wages are being driven down, and if you're a business owner it's all good news isn't it. You can pay less in wages, and make more profits. Currently the East Europeans are driving down the wages in the semi skilled and unskilled sectors, but it will soon be East European IT Specialists, Dentists and Engineers.

The only part of this that I would question is where you say the businesses make more profit. From what I know, many businesses can't afford to pay much more than they do because, if they did, they'd be undercut by a competitor, quite possibly just a group of immigrant workers.

An acquaintance of mine runs a business similar to that you describe, in Suffolk, an area which has quite it's share of EU migrants. He employs a mix of Brits and immigrants. He's struggling to keep any customer long term, because they just shop around for the lowest of the low quotes and it's a constant battle. Soon to be lost from what I hear.

The current situation is just driving things down to the lowest common denominator and It can only get worse when we end up with a few hundred thousand 'refugees', though many of them won't be working at all, I would predict.

[Cheese Mechanic]

Immigration figures from the ONS

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3211636/UK...

Aside the headline, it does make you fear for our national identity . Such huge influx of those from different cultures cannot fail to have an impact, in numerous ways.

[Cheese Mechanic]

johnboy1975 said:

Presumably there's a consensus that controlled immigration is a good thing, and uncontrolled immigration is a bad thing?

Thats basically my perspective on the matter. Not all immigrants are equal, there are many educated , decent people who come here and we all benefit from their contribution by their hard work.

However, I do not beleive we benefit from Latvian convicted murderers , and large numbers of illiterate goatherds and basket weavers. Some form of vetting/control over incomers is sorely needed.