Our online poll topic - Should there be an overall cap on the level of immigration in response to rising levels of UK unemployment? - proved very popular. At the time of writing, the vast majority of readers, 79 per cent, said ‘Yes’.
I find this surprising, for a number of reasons. Back in March, when the early warning signs of a faltering economy were starting to show, I wrote in the feature Say hello, wave goodbye: “British business has an overwhelmingly positive story to tell about its migrant workforce because, in spite of skills shortages, an ageing population and, in Scotland and Ireland’s case, high emigration, the economy has enjoyed an Indian summer of prosperity thanks in part to the immigration boom. But as the economy starts to feel the crunch, so migrants may go as quickly as they came, and with that could come problems.”
I was writing mostly about the boom of immigration from within the EU, and Eastern Europe especially. Since then, we have indeed seen large numbers leaving our shores, as Lucy Phillips reported. A Polish food factory worker in Scotland, Pawel Padziunas, told me back then, “It’s not about the country, it’s not about liking or not liking – it’s only about the money.”
The notion that a fixed cap on immigration will affect UK unemployment doesn’t seem to tally. As we enter recession, many migrant workers will lose their jobs or chose to leave for pastures new; the increasingly free movement across EU borders now allows them to do that. In a sense, for some employers this almost represents a guilt-free form of cutting jobs. Migrant workers are infamously un-unionised and can have the option to join another nation’s payroll rather than the dole queue.
The issues that remain then are non-EU workers, and the problems that required an immigration solution in the first place – skills shortages and demographics. The argument for letting fewer people in now that there are fewer jobs going around is overly simplistic. For a start, the UK is a far less appealing proposition than it was a couple of years ago. Those still wishing to enter fall very roughly into two categories – those with the skills none of us have, and those willing to do the jobs none of us want to do. Which of those two groups would you not like coming in? And in any case, the former category is covered by the new points-based system.
In rapidly worsening, or even rapidly improving, economic times – for organisations as well as governments – surely the ability to be flexible and adaptable is a necessity. If we need more people in a certain industry or skills set, so we let those people in; again, something the points-based system is designed to do. A fixed number or cap is far harder to change (imagine the headlines) and inflexible by its very nature.
I’d love to hear from the 79 per cent of you who felt otherwise. Is the points-based system not working? Has unemployment in your area been caused by immigration? Leave your comments below.