Brexit: EU considers migration ‘emergency brake’ for UK
Discussion
Mario149 said:
...As for Romanians, unless you have any data that shows otherwise, one assumes they over-contribute to our economy just as the other EU migrants do....
As far as I'm aware from the debacle that was the referendum campaigning, nobody has any data that can definitively show the net impact that immigration has.I'm inclined to believe on a net basis it's positive. But would dearly love to know the detail specifics of that. One of the potential benefits of controlling immigration is that you could readily have access to the detail specifics if it were set up properly (which I fully accept is a big "if" given the competence of our various governments) which would help make well founded strategic decisions rather than basing them on assumption (see, I do have Utopian dreams
).JagLover said:
ATG said:
This is the key point. We don't have to speculate about the impact of FML on employment and wages. There is empirical evidence.
Indeed there is TheMigrationobservatory said:
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. Whether and to what extent declining wages increase unemployment or inactivity among existing workers depends on their willingness to accept the new lower wages. If, on the other hand, the skills of migrants are complementary to those of existing workers, all workers experience increased productivity which can be expected to lead to a rise in the wages of existing workers.
You might even say it is an argument for a points based immigration system....http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings...
Links said:
The effects of immigration on workers within specific wage ranges or in specific occupations are more significant. The greatest wage effects are found for low-waged workers. Dustmann et al (2013) find that each 1% increase in the share of migrants in the UK-born working age population leads to a 0.6% decline in the wages of the 5% lowest paid workers and to an increase in the wages of higher paid workers. Similarly, another study focusing on wage effects at the occupational level during 1992 and 2006, found that, in the unskilled and semi-skilled service sector, a 1% rise in the share of migrants reduced average wages in that occupation by 0.5% (Nickell and Salaheen 2008).
The available research further shows that any adverse wage effects of immigration are likely to be greatest for resident workers who are themselves migrants. This is because the skills of new migrants are likely to be closer substitutes for the skills of migrants already employed in the UK than for those of UK-born workers. Manacorda, Manning and Wadsworth (2012) analyse data from 1975-2005 and conclude that the main impact of increased immigration is on the wages of migrants already in the UK.
So in a nutshell, for every 650,000 migrants that arrive, 5% of working people (1.5M) see their wage go down by about 0.5% (not quite sure how that squares with the min wage which apparently ~5% of the population are on already, must be part time people that are affected), and ironically, the most adverse effects are felt by the other migrants already here.The available research further shows that any adverse wage effects of immigration are likely to be greatest for resident workers who are themselves migrants. This is because the skills of new migrants are likely to be closer substitutes for the skills of migrants already employed in the UK than for those of UK-born workers. Manacorda, Manning and Wadsworth (2012) analyse data from 1975-2005 and conclude that the main impact of increased immigration is on the wages of migrants already in the UK.
And for the other 95% of people, wages go up. And all of this is before the new NLW comes in. So it's fractions, maybe even less than 0.1%, of a % change annually for 1 in 20 of the workforce, ironically with migrants actually being most affected. Hardly earth shattering.
I would suggest that if we did want to do something about it, a points based entry system for EU migrants that already doesn't work for non-EU migrants is not the easiest or best way to solve "the problem". In fact the easiest way to solve it would be to take the money we would have spent on the running and policing of the points system and just give £1 a week (0.3% pay rise) to everyone on min wage, job jobbed....and it'd only cost about £70M (not B, but M) a year.
PRTVR said:
Mario149 said:
Of course people get in the way, but you don't think we should try for it? And if adding new countries now or in the future did not appear to be beneficial we wouldn't have had to so it's a bit of a non-argument.
Funny you should mention being able to live and work in Oz and the USA - those are 2 places that my partner and I have investigated to move to for work and found we could not without seriously re-aligning our jobs/life to meet visa requirements. Conversely, we could move to Spain tomorrow and we'd have to change nothing about our current jobs etc. In fact we're considering doing a trial 4-6 months there sometime in the medium term future to try it out. So I'm sorry but FML is beneficial, even if not so much for you.
The problem is what do you consider as beneficial and who is it beneficial for ? if you are talking about the ideals of the EU that makes sense, of bring in everybody to a low level I understand that, take Romania, what benefits did they bring? begging on the streets, increased prison population, non tax paying car washes, its all about power, the more counties in the EU the more power the EU has, they do not care who they let in they just fiddle the figures till they fit, just look at Greece.Funny you should mention being able to live and work in Oz and the USA - those are 2 places that my partner and I have investigated to move to for work and found we could not without seriously re-aligning our jobs/life to meet visa requirements. Conversely, we could move to Spain tomorrow and we'd have to change nothing about our current jobs etc. In fact we're considering doing a trial 4-6 months there sometime in the medium term future to try it out. So I'm sorry but FML is beneficial, even if not so much for you.
Wonderful you can move easily to Spain and get a job, but the consequences may be that the firm who employs you do not need to train a young person to do the job, leading to increased youth unemployment, something Spain has enough of, but that doesn't matter as I am all right eh ?
The idea that the EU expands to gain power is also obviously wrong. New members dilute the voting share of the existing members. It doesn't change the "power" of the Commission, because it doesn't have any real power in the first place. The federalists who do indeed want the EU to become something like a superstate have actively opposed EU expansion. It's been countries like the UK that have successfully pushed the EU to expand precisely because it undermines the prospect of a tightly integrated, centralised EU.
What did the Romanians bring to the EU? One example: an educated, under-employed workforce. I work for a US company that employs about 15,000 people in the UK. Roughly a third of those jobs are in IT; highly skilled, well paid jobs, located across the country. We struggle to find enough candidates for our IT vacancies. Romanian accession to the single market has given us a fantastic opportunity to recruit. We already had a few Romanians in our department. They suggested recruiting direct from Romanian universities, so we got involved in the Romanian version of the "milk round" and we now fill a significant proportion of our graduate recruitment places from Romania. They are highly educated, multi-lingual and have a great attitude. Clearly we're providing them with a great opportunity, but there are also huge benefits for the UK. Firstly they're not taking jobs from Britons; there aren't enough Britons to fill the roles we have open. They're here in the UK earning high salaries and paying UK taxes. We haven't had to pay for their educations. Compared to the average UK worker, they are younger, healthier and don't have kids of their own yet. So they pay a ton of income tax but hardly use the NHS, take up school places, or use any other state services. They are big net contributors. They also help keep my employer in the UK. One of the big attractions of the UK for a US firm was that they'd be free to recruit from across the entire EU. If the UK stops free movement of labour, we'll hand an immediate competitive advantage to EU member states. The harder it is for my firm to recruit staff in the UK, the more we'll be encouraged to locate job roles in the USA and Far East in the short term, and we'll no doubt put in place a location strategy for somewhere in the EU.
Murph7355 said:
Mario149 said:
Of course people get in the way, but you don't think we should try for it? And if adding new countries now or in the future did not appear to be beneficial we wouldn't have had to so it's a bit of a non-argument.
Funny you should mention being able to live and work in Oz and the USA - those are 2 places that my partner and I have investigated to move to for work and found we could not without seriously re-aligning our jobs/life to meet visa requirements. Conversely, we could move to Spain tomorrow and we'd have to change nothing about our current jobs etc. In fact we're considering doing a trial 4-6 months there sometime in the medium term future to try it out. So I'm sorry but FML is beneficial, even if not so much for you.
There are many Utopian dreams I think we should work towards, but we need to ensure we aren't fiddling while Rome burns.Funny you should mention being able to live and work in Oz and the USA - those are 2 places that my partner and I have investigated to move to for work and found we could not without seriously re-aligning our jobs/life to meet visa requirements. Conversely, we could move to Spain tomorrow and we'd have to change nothing about our current jobs etc. In fact we're considering doing a trial 4-6 months there sometime in the medium term future to try it out. So I'm sorry but FML is beneficial, even if not so much for you.
Your latter paragraph hints at the less positive side of immigration IMO. Wanting to go over to another country but not integrate/conform to what your host wants/needs ("we could not without seriously re-aligning our jobs/life to meet visa requirements") is not positive immigration in my view. And your summary seems to be that FML is beneficial as it allows people to do whatever they want regardless of whether that's deemed positive by their new host. I may have misread your intent. But to me that's simply not a good enough reason to accept FML.
Murph7355 said:
Mario149 said:
...As for Romanians, unless you have any data that shows otherwise, one assumes they over-contribute to our economy just as the other EU migrants do....
As far as I'm aware from the debacle that was the referendum campaigning, nobody has any data that can definitively show the net impact that immigration has.I'm inclined to believe on a net basis it's positive. But would dearly love to know the detail specifics of that. One of the potential benefits of controlling immigration is that you could readily have access to the detail specifics if it were set up properly (which I fully accept is a big "if" given the competence of our various governments) which would help make well founded strategic decisions rather than basing them on assumption (see, I do have Utopian dreams
).Murph7355 said:
Your latter paragraph hints at the less positive side of immigration IMO. Wanting to go over to another country but not integrate/conform to what your host wants/needs ("we could not without seriously re-aligning our jobs/life to meet visa requirements") is not positive immigration in my view. And your summary seems to be that FML is beneficial as it allows people to do whatever they want regardless of whether that's deemed positive by their new host. I may have misread your intent. But to me that's simply not a good enough reason to accept FML.
So are you suggesting EU immigrants are not integrated?ATG said:
"of bringing in everybody to a low level" ... if you're trying to say that one of the EU's ideals is to bring everybody down to the same low level, then that's obviously not true.
The idea that the EU expands to gain power is also obviously wrong. New members dilute the voting share of the existing members. It doesn't change the "power" of the Commission, because it doesn't have any real power in the first place. The federalists who do indeed want the EU to become something like a superstate have actively opposed EU expansion. It's been countries like the UK that have successfully pushed the EU to expand precisely because it undermines the prospect of a tightly integrated, centralised EU.
What did the Romanians bring to the EU? One example: an educated, under-employed workforce. I work for a US company that employs about 15,000 people in the UK. Roughly a third of those jobs are in IT; highly skilled, well paid jobs, located across the country. We struggle to find enough candidates for our IT vacancies. Romanian accession to the single market has given us a fantastic opportunity to recruit. We already had a few Romanians in our department. They suggested recruiting direct from Romanian universities, so we got involved in the Romanian version of the "milk round" and we now fill a significant proportion of our graduate recruitment places from Romania. They are highly educated, multi-lingual and have a great attitude. Clearly we're providing them with a great opportunity, but there are also huge benefits for the UK. Firstly they're not taking jobs from Britons; there aren't enough Britons to fill the roles we have open. They're here in the UK earning high salaries and paying UK taxes. We haven't had to pay for their educations. Compared to the average UK worker, they are younger, healthier and don't have kids of their own yet. So they pay a ton of income tax but hardly use the NHS, take up school places, or use any other state services. They are big net contributors. They also help keep my employer in the UK. One of the big attractions of the UK for a US firm was that they'd be free to recruit from across the entire EU. If the UK stops free movement of labour, we'll hand an immediate competitive advantage to EU member states. The harder it is for my firm to recruit staff in the UK, the more we'll be encouraged to locate job roles in the USA and Far East in the short term, and we'll no doubt put in place a location strategy for somewhere in the EU.
If you and your company weren't saviours of the economy I'd maybe get the wrong impression that you were talking utopian blackmailing bullsThe idea that the EU expands to gain power is also obviously wrong. New members dilute the voting share of the existing members. It doesn't change the "power" of the Commission, because it doesn't have any real power in the first place. The federalists who do indeed want the EU to become something like a superstate have actively opposed EU expansion. It's been countries like the UK that have successfully pushed the EU to expand precisely because it undermines the prospect of a tightly integrated, centralised EU.
What did the Romanians bring to the EU? One example: an educated, under-employed workforce. I work for a US company that employs about 15,000 people in the UK. Roughly a third of those jobs are in IT; highly skilled, well paid jobs, located across the country. We struggle to find enough candidates for our IT vacancies. Romanian accession to the single market has given us a fantastic opportunity to recruit. We already had a few Romanians in our department. They suggested recruiting direct from Romanian universities, so we got involved in the Romanian version of the "milk round" and we now fill a significant proportion of our graduate recruitment places from Romania. They are highly educated, multi-lingual and have a great attitude. Clearly we're providing them with a great opportunity, but there are also huge benefits for the UK. Firstly they're not taking jobs from Britons; there aren't enough Britons to fill the roles we have open. They're here in the UK earning high salaries and paying UK taxes. We haven't had to pay for their educations. Compared to the average UK worker, they are younger, healthier and don't have kids of their own yet. So they pay a ton of income tax but hardly use the NHS, take up school places, or use any other state services. They are big net contributors. They also help keep my employer in the UK. One of the big attractions of the UK for a US firm was that they'd be free to recruit from across the entire EU. If the UK stops free movement of labour, we'll hand an immediate competitive advantage to EU member states. The harder it is for my firm to recruit staff in the UK, the more we'll be encouraged to locate job roles in the USA and Far East in the short term, and we'll no doubt put in place a location strategy for somewhere in the EU.
t.All these superfit Romanians contributing millions to the UK economy,never needing pensions,never getting ill,not taking any housing,not causing any brain drain on their own country and fulfilling roles that no UK person wants to do.I salute you and your company and and all who sail in her.
Mario149 said:
Their visa hoops stop me applying for $150K+ jobs that they may not have enough skilled people to do.
I don't know why. I've worked in the US 3 separate times, 3 different visas, was perfectly simple. Employing company just gets a lawyer to do all the paperwork and you bimble along to the US embassy and get your visa. Waste of a day but in the context of moving countries it's up there with getting Tower fvcking Hamlets to stop sending you council tax reminders in terms of difficulty. Certainly shouldn't be an obstacle to a $150k jobEdited by anonymous-user on Thursday 28th July 17:54
Funkycoldribena said:
ATG said:
"of bringing in everybody to a low level" ... if you're trying to say that one of the EU's ideals is to bring everybody down to the same low level, then that's obviously not true.
The idea that the EU expands to gain power is also obviously wrong. New members dilute the voting share of the existing members. It doesn't change the "power" of the Commission, because it doesn't have any real power in the first place. The federalists who do indeed want the EU to become something like a superstate have actively opposed EU expansion. It's been countries like the UK that have successfully pushed the EU to expand precisely because it undermines the prospect of a tightly integrated, centralised EU.
What did the Romanians bring to the EU? One example: an educated, under-employed workforce. I work for a US company that employs about 15,000 people in the UK. Roughly a third of those jobs are in IT; highly skilled, well paid jobs, located across the country. We struggle to find enough candidates for our IT vacancies. Romanian accession to the single market has given us a fantastic opportunity to recruit. We already had a few Romanians in our department. They suggested recruiting direct from Romanian universities, so we got involved in the Romanian version of the "milk round" and we now fill a significant proportion of our graduate recruitment places from Romania. They are highly educated, multi-lingual and have a great attitude. Clearly we're providing them with a great opportunity, but there are also huge benefits for the UK. Firstly they're not taking jobs from Britons; there aren't enough Britons to fill the roles we have open. They're here in the UK earning high salaries and paying UK taxes. We haven't had to pay for their educations. Compared to the average UK worker, they are younger, healthier and don't have kids of their own yet. So they pay a ton of income tax but hardly use the NHS, take up school places, or use any other state services. They are big net contributors. They also help keep my employer in the UK. One of the big attractions of the UK for a US firm was that they'd be free to recruit from across the entire EU. If the UK stops free movement of labour, we'll hand an immediate competitive advantage to EU member states. The harder it is for my firm to recruit staff in the UK, the more we'll be encouraged to locate job roles in the USA and Far East in the short term, and we'll no doubt put in place a location strategy for somewhere in the EU.
If you and your company weren't saviours of the economy I'd maybe get the wrong impression that you were talking utopian blackmailing bullsThe idea that the EU expands to gain power is also obviously wrong. New members dilute the voting share of the existing members. It doesn't change the "power" of the Commission, because it doesn't have any real power in the first place. The federalists who do indeed want the EU to become something like a superstate have actively opposed EU expansion. It's been countries like the UK that have successfully pushed the EU to expand precisely because it undermines the prospect of a tightly integrated, centralised EU.
What did the Romanians bring to the EU? One example: an educated, under-employed workforce. I work for a US company that employs about 15,000 people in the UK. Roughly a third of those jobs are in IT; highly skilled, well paid jobs, located across the country. We struggle to find enough candidates for our IT vacancies. Romanian accession to the single market has given us a fantastic opportunity to recruit. We already had a few Romanians in our department. They suggested recruiting direct from Romanian universities, so we got involved in the Romanian version of the "milk round" and we now fill a significant proportion of our graduate recruitment places from Romania. They are highly educated, multi-lingual and have a great attitude. Clearly we're providing them with a great opportunity, but there are also huge benefits for the UK. Firstly they're not taking jobs from Britons; there aren't enough Britons to fill the roles we have open. They're here in the UK earning high salaries and paying UK taxes. We haven't had to pay for their educations. Compared to the average UK worker, they are younger, healthier and don't have kids of their own yet. So they pay a ton of income tax but hardly use the NHS, take up school places, or use any other state services. They are big net contributors. They also help keep my employer in the UK. One of the big attractions of the UK for a US firm was that they'd be free to recruit from across the entire EU. If the UK stops free movement of labour, we'll hand an immediate competitive advantage to EU member states. The harder it is for my firm to recruit staff in the UK, the more we'll be encouraged to locate job roles in the USA and Far East in the short term, and we'll no doubt put in place a location strategy for somewhere in the EU.
t.All these superfit Romanians contributing millions to the UK economy,never needing pensions,never getting ill,not taking any housing,not causing any brain drain on their own country and fulfilling roles that no UK person wants to do.I salute you and your company and and all who sail in her.
t. It's just one small example from the real world. They're a bunch of twenty-somethings working in the UK for a US firm paying their taxes; no more, no less.So what is your point?
fblm said:
Mario149 said:
Their visa hoops stop me applying for $150K+ jobs that they may not have enough skilled people to do.
I don't know why. I've worked in the US 3 separate times, 3 different visas, was perfectly simple. Employing company just gets a lawyer to do all the paperwork and you bimble along to the US embassy and get your visa. Waste of a day but in the context of moving countries it's up there with getting Tower fvcking Hamlets to stop sending you council tax reminders in terms of difficulty.t. The fact that you were shielded from most of it is nice, but not really relevant.I've forgotten the exact figure, but we budget something like $50k to relocate a member of staff from London to the US and the lion's share of that is for the visa process end to end, not apartment rental, shipping their crap and injections for Fido. It's a significant barrier to mobility within the firm for more junior members of staff; exactly the ones who've got the fewest ties and might well see a stint abroad as a big perk of the job.
fblm said:
Mario149 said:
Their visa hoops stop me applying for $150K+ jobs that they may not have enough skilled people to do.
I don't know why. I've worked in the US 3 separate times, 3 different visas, was perfectly simple. Employing company just gets a lawyer to do all the paperwork and you bimble along to the US embassy and get your visa. Waste of a day but in the context of moving countries it's up there with getting Tower fvcking Hamlets to stop sending you council tax reminders in terms of difficulty. Certainly shouldn't be an obstacle to a $150k jobEdited by fblm on Thursday 28th July 17:54
Compare that to us moving to somewhere in the EU which basically involves us getting on a plane to go there.
Mario149 said:
PRTVR said:
Mario149 said:
Of course people get in the way, but you don't think we should try for it? And if adding new countries now or in the future did not appear to be beneficial we wouldn't have had to so it's a bit of a non-argument.
Funny you should mention being able to live and work in Oz and the USA - those are 2 places that my partner and I have investigated to move to for work and found we could not without seriously re-aligning our jobs/life to meet visa requirements. Conversely, we could move to Spain tomorrow and we'd have to change nothing about our current jobs etc. In fact we're considering doing a trial 4-6 months there sometime in the medium term future to try it out. So I'm sorry but FML is beneficial, even if not so much for you.
The problem is what do you consider as beneficial and who is it beneficial for ? if you are talking about the ideals of the EU that makes sense, of bring in everybody to a low level I understand that, take Romania, what benefits did they bring? begging on the streets, increased prison population, non tax paying car washes, its all about power, the more counties in the EU the more power the EU has, they do not care who they let in they just fiddle the figures till they fit, just look at Greece.Funny you should mention being able to live and work in Oz and the USA - those are 2 places that my partner and I have investigated to move to for work and found we could not without seriously re-aligning our jobs/life to meet visa requirements. Conversely, we could move to Spain tomorrow and we'd have to change nothing about our current jobs etc. In fact we're considering doing a trial 4-6 months there sometime in the medium term future to try it out. So I'm sorry but FML is beneficial, even if not so much for you.
Wonderful you can move easily to Spain and get a job, but the consequences may be that the firm who employs you do not need to train a young person to do the job, leading to increased youth unemployment, something Spain has enough of, but that doesn't matter as I am all right eh ?
As for Spain, actually no. My job would still be in the UK, but due to freedom of movement, I can live there and work in the UK. And if I'm there for longer than 6 months, they get my income tax etc as well
I thought the discussion was about free movement of labour? I wonder how many people live in Spain and work in the UK, my point still stands if a company can get fully qualified employees easily why go to the expense of training ?
The truth about immigration verses costs is a very grey area, my thoughts are there were a lot of reports completed to give weight to the large numbers that the government could not control, I did read that I in 3 Rumanians in London had contact with the police, I have meet a few well educated hard working Rumanians but the problem is we have to take the criminals as well, at great cost to the judicial system, it's not cheap to lock people up, but none of this matters now as we are leaving.
Mrr T said:
So are you suggesting EU immigrants are not integrated?
NoMario149 said:
My argument is that FML is more efficient than jumping through visa/points hoops. Their visa hoops stop me applying for $150K+ jobs that they may not have enough skilled people to do. In terms of pay it, it's not quite as good as here, but we might have been willing to decamp to California for the climate etc for the medium term, pay our taxes there and contribute. Or indeed, I might have been able to keep my UK work, but pay their taxes out there and not "take" any of their jobs.
I'm sure they'll cope and that on balance they feel the advantages of the system outweigh losing the opportunity to pay people such as yourself.If you want something enough, you jump through the hoops. If you don't, you don't.
I would imagine there are likely to be more 150k+ opportunities in the US than in Spain. And less language issues (assuming you don't speak Spanish). But then Ive never looked to work in Spain (great place for a holiday but I have little/no interest in working there).
ATG said:
...and we'll no doubt put in place a location strategy for somewhere in the EU.
I'm surprised your employer doesn't already have a location strategy that has people being placed in Romania or other accession states.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff