In the past few weeks there has been a lot of talk about immigrants in the UK and how they take away British jobs. For example, there have been protests in Nottinghamshire and Kent against French engineering company, Alstom.
Two of the subcontractors were bringing foreign workforce, from Spain and Poland, taking what were perceived to be British jobs. Alstrom could not do anything about it because under EU employment laws on the free movement of labour, a sub-contractor that wins a contract abroad is allowed to bring in its own staff to execute the work. It is very easy to sympathise with the local workers especially in these hard times. But Alstrom is employing 5000 people in the UK, 2 thirds of which are British. The company also takes on 30 British engineering apprentices a year.
There are increasing worries about the number of foreign workers currently in Britain. Over the past decade 1.8 million foreigners were added to the UK workforce. One in 7 jobs belongs to a worker not born in Britain. The interesting aspect is that EU employment laws work both sides. More than a million Brits work in other EU countries.
The intra-company transfers is another raised issue as these roles do not have to be advertised in the UK, so the British workers do not even have access to the information or the recruitment process. In 2008 the intra-company transfers were up 47% from 2004, the equivalent of 130 people arriving every day.
As a response to all the foreign workers protests, the Home Office Secretary, Jacqui Smith has declared how the current points-based immigration system will toughen up to discourage non EU workers that come into the UK. These changes will affect highly skilled migrants, skilled workers and students who want to stay and work at the end of their courses. But are these people actually negatively affecting the labour market?
Research published today by the Institute for Public Policy shows how the large-scale migration from eastern Europe since 2004 has not had any substantial negative impact on either wages or employment. The research found how a 1% point increase in the UK working population would reduce wages by approximately 0.3%. That would reflect a small change for someone earning £6 an hour working a 40-hour week: 70p less per week. If, for example, people would choose to stay in further education rather than leave school at 16, that would increase their wage by about 10%. For the same person as above (£6 an hour working a 40-hour week) would translate in £24 a week more.
Furthermore, in recent published data, the number of migrants coming from Eastern European countries is falling and those that came have now gone home, showing how the recession began to make UK a not so attractive market.
The timing and the context is everything though, as hundreds of British people are losing their jobs everyday. These issues would normally not even be raised. Today, they become very sensible and make headlines.
The weird thing is I was a student who wanted to remain here and work at the end of my course. Being from EU, I am not directly affected by the restricting measures, but I can still understand the effect this may have on students’ lives. On the other hand, I was also thinking what a tragedy must be for a family to lose their financial stability because the father and/or the mother have lost their job in the run for cutting costs.
Reading about the research published today made me what to write about this. Emotions and human tragedy can get you carried away. But there is always another side of the story. The one with facts that show you how all these immigrants are not financially affecting the labour market. I think that when you’re down, the way you look at things around you becomes distortional and all you see is greys and blacks. Could it be all in the perspective? Is the truth in the eye of the beholder?
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