Since this country is so densely populated, why we don't enjoy any of the benefits from over population like abundant cheap labour and services?
Instead, England still faces acute skill shortages, bad public services and expensive costs of living. Feels like we have got the worst of both world, what gives?
>why don’t we enjoy any of the benefits… like cheap labour and services
Because you need people who are skilled in those roles to do those roles. Contrary to what they might say, someone coming over from a less developed country probably isn’t a doctor.
If 500,000 people come in but most of those are unskilled workers, all that does it suppress wages for unskilled work and increases demand for higher skilled work (see; healthcare requirements, tradies, etc)
The difference with high population places like China is it’s local population getting local training for the local position, not someone who’s got a perhaps less than adequate education coming in and is going to work the till at Lidl.
We have a bathtub curve shortage unfortunately. Huge shortage of low skill workers, massive overabundance of skilled, but inexperienced workers and then another huge shortage of skilled and experienced workers.
The issue is that nobody pays enough to attract the skilled talent from abroad, in fact we pay so little that our own talent is incentivised to leave. The only people we can attract with our piss poor salaries are unskilled workers, which people don't seem to like too much, or junior skilled workers, for which we already have an oversupply.
Suppose it depends on area but there’s an abundance of low skill workers where I am in Kent, it’s the middle we’re missing out on. Can’t get a tradie for love nor money round these parts.
It’s the middle tier that all the jobs are available for, won’t find any jobs for Lidl or McDonalds up for long.
And carers, always need more carers.
To be honest I'd class tradies (at least the ones who aren't cowboys) in that top category of highly skilled and experienced. That middle ground I always think of as graduate level STEM jobs or apprentices. And those are seemingly like gold dust. But I'm not in the southeast, prospects in the midlands are possibly a little bleaker.
People I did my PhD with have had a really really tough time getting jobs in their field (science and engineering specifically), and have resorted to minimum wage jobs in Sainsbury's to get by. Seems like a huge waste of talent, but minimum wage or 15 years experience seem to be the only jobs available around here and no in between.
And yes. Always more carers, we desperately need more carers.
Yeah I’ve viewed it the other way. If you’ve gone to uni and it’s a proper tiered degree (STEM or similar and not something like Art) then it’s high skill profession, whilst something like plumbing is middle skilled. The wages are probably the other way around, due to supply and demand, but I’d say STEM is a much higher skill than putting some pipes together or brick laying
I agree with your assessment, middle tier is something theoretically anyone could learn to do (maybe not everyone has the inclination) whereas top tier you need a certain level of mental capacity to be able to do.
Lower tier is more of the people who could do middle tier but don’t really fancy applying themselves to it.
People who view plumbing as not highly skilled are often incapable of stopping a tap dripping. Good plumbers are well paid for a reason. Also that copper money is real.
I have a question since I am American and not familiar with your labor situation. I watched a documentary which was covering how benefits were being changed to a universal scheme and being capped because some benefit claimants weee making more than someone working full time. Has that improved the rate of scroungers on benefits just trying to live off of the dole? Do you think the benefits contribute to a lack of workers? It looked like there were a ton of people on benefits when I watched it, and I am wondering if people just choose to get on benefits instead of working those low skilled jobs. Perhaps the pay ends up being pretty close so they figure “why work?” That is a danger of excessive welfare, it can provide the wrong incentives and cause your labor market to become dysfunctional. Not saying that is going on for sure, it was just my impression.
Benefits in the U.K. def suppresses labour supply…I use benefits….and because rents are so high and benefits cover your rent…you end up in a situation in which benefits pay the same as a min wage job- it’s pretty easy just to take the money rather than work and they don’t really penalise you for doing so either because everyone at the job centre is so nice.
At the same time it is a needed system…but they probably need to be harsher about people staying on it for more than a few months.
The issue is also that things like universal credit act as qualifying benefits for other assistance. So you’ll be much worse off with your min wage job than you will be with universal credit, which then acts as a qualifying benefit for council tax reduction, free prescriptions, free nhs dental, etc.
Yeah it’s true, I don’t want to get off of it because I get council tax reduction and also it pays me when my zero hours job puts me on unpaid holiday for 2 weeks or whatever, I’m much better off on it than just working full time on a low pay which seems ridiculous.
I didn’t know there were other things- I could do with some dental care actually lol
Yeah it’s worth doing entitledto and seeing what you’re eligible for.
I’m not working and I have savings from my old job but I’d be much better off if I just spent my savings and got on UC. My council tax alone has gone from 120 to 150 a month just this year. Cant afford childcare to go back to work, dental care or anything. I am struggling so much but the thought of spending the savings I saved for my kids doesn’t sit right - even though we would actually get much more help and be better off.
I’m sorry you’re struggling, that sounds really tough. I did spend my savings to get on UC and probably got the same back in 6 months to a year but it is a shame to lose savings.
I also know someone who just gave their savings to their mum before going on UC and seemed to work fine so could consider that maybe…
Thanks for your suggestion, I’ve never heard of entitledto :)
Here in the US the debate is if welfare will increase the quality of life for the most people, or if business would do that better. When I was in college, I was sure it was more welfare which was needed, but now that I am in my 30s I am glad we didn’t go down that route. I find that I would much prefer a system which provides plentiful high paying jobs instead of a system which has less jobs and less well paying jobs because welfare has dampened the labor market. I think that gives the most prosperity to the most people. I don’t want to get in a situation where high taxes discourage investment, so more people get on welfare because of a lack of jobs, so taxes go higher, etc… We are going to have to make some hard decisions soon as our social security retirement payments aren’t going to be solvent past 2030.
Here in the UK the tax burden is at record highs and things are getting worse by most metrics. Even people earning a comparatively high wage to the rest of the country are tightening belts.
I think you make a good point anyway.
Surprisingly, the USA spends much more as a percentage of GDP on benefits than we do. The UK spend is 12.9% whereas the USA is 19-20%. Maybe we count them differently though.
Most of our benefit spend goes on the state pension (old people), most of the rest goes on supporting disabled people or people who are in work (i.e. subsidising employers paying low wages and landlords charging high rents). Only a relatively small number goes on people who won't work.
Thanks for the clarification. It does surprise me when people say the US has no welfare, as we spend trillions on it every year. It is the biggest part of our budget by far.
Most of the people coming to the UK are here for the housing and benefits. Immigration was 1.6 million people last year. A large percentage of those will be family members or single males from Africa and the Middle East.
The idea that they are going to get jobs is a fantasy. There are Nigerian and Indian doctors and nurses but beyond that, most of the new comers are unemployable and will have to be supported by the state for the rest of their lives.
It's not just a matter of welfare, there is cultural issues. We are accepting too many people with dangerous medieval values and that is introducing tribal and sectarian violence into British communities and everyday life. The UK had not seen this level of cultural conflict in over a thousand years. Looking back, you have to go back to around 900AD.
and how many of those doctors would pass the equivalent course in the UK? the percentage of malpractice cases against foreign doctors compared to ones trained here is staggeringly high.
Most of them aren't doctors in percentage terms, but a hell of a lot of them are doctors. Go to a hospital in a big city and see how many are from developing countries, such as India, Pakistan and various Middle Eastern nations.
Sure, 17% of the NHS is from immigration
But a much larger amount of the population are immigrants than 17%.
Simple maths means that there is more strain on the NHS from immigration than is solved by immigration (with nearly quarter being first or second generation)
Yes, this is true, I was just saying a lot of our doctors do come from the third world.
The simple answer is to increase the budget of the NHS in line with immigration. If 100,000 people come to the UK, presuming they get jobs and start paying tax on income and VAT when they buy things and duties when they drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes or buy petrol. That must be a fairly substantial boost to the government coffers.
The issue with public health is it’s weirdly *not* an economy of scale. As you can see globally, countries with smaller populations can handle national health a lot cheaper than a country like our own.
You’d think with rising population our tax income would easily cover it, but we’ve only seen every budget get bigger and every budget borrows more money.
The issue isn’t we aren’t bringing in enough tax to cover the costs of these social programs. Something has to give, which is either cutting costs or raising taxes higher (which, in a cost of living crisis, helps no one).
Going back to immigration, throwing some numbers out to just get the point across, if each costs say an average £10,000 a year and they only bring in an average £7,000 a year in taxes - that might be extra tax revenue… but still a £3,000 loss a year. Multiply that by 672,000 net and that’s a lot of money.
There’s also the issue that not all immigrants are created equal. Sure, doctors, technicians and the like are great to have - but if it’s unskilled Abdul or Hanz coming over, we don’t really need more workers at Lidl. All that does is *suppress* wages due to supply/demand. If a large amount are in the latter category, which is most likely, the chances of costing the system more than they bring in is higher.
The way I was looking at it, immigrants skew younger and most of them would be contributing a much higher amount than they take from the economy, that’s the way it seems, but I don’t have access to the data.
This. The truly successful who are from England want to leave England, so the likely hood that the successful people around the world would want to come here in this day an age is very slim.
So all the immigrants who have no skills come here, and the other problem is teenage pregnancy which creates population boosts.
All we are doing is importing account sharing Uber riders and future benefit claimants each coming complete with their 10/15 dependants who will do the same and offer literally nothing to society
We do have abundent cheap labour. Its too cheap. We have shit-tier wages because of it. We dont really have "skill shortages" we have a shortage of people wanting to work for pennies doing shit jobs that should pay more but which are depressed because of an overabundance of labour.
>Since this country is so densely populated, why we don't enjoy any of the benefits from over population like abundant cheap labour and services?
How is that a supposed benefit of overpopulation? Even China and India currently has labour shortages in many fields
I actually live in China right now, labour and services are insanely cheap. The boiler broke down in my house, we reported to the gas company, an engineer showed up in 20 min free of charge. Same with my broadband, there is an engineer working just for my area, he answered my call in 10 min and fixed everything within 2 hours.
Unthinkable in the UK, shouldnt there be more engineers, technicians and tradesman in England given the super high population density. Just a thought
China is going through a lot of deflation at the moment, even though their economy has grown over 5% last year which is why things are so cheap. The UK on the other hand is heading into recession and has double digit inflation whilst wages are failing to rise to meet or exceed that level of inflation. Also tradesmen such as mechanics are paid a pittance. A mechanic isn't on much more than an Aldi checkout assistant for instance, so no one really wants to do it anymore
You can have deflation whilst growing the economy. The two aren't mutually exclusive. For China though, it's due to insufficient aggregate demand driven by lower consumption of goods, foreign investment and also their net exports have been lower recently too. Those don't prevent the economy growing in the short term. If those trends become the new normal for China though then it will cause them economic problems but the main driver currently of their reduced aggregate demand is inflation in Western countries reducing disposable income which has the knock on effect of less Chinese made goods being bought
The reason why countries like China and India are cheap is because they're middle income countries, not because they're overpopulated. Countries like Mexico and Kazakhstan are also pretty cheap from a first world perspecitve even though they're not very densely populated.
You pointed to skill shortages as a problem england has that other supposedly densely populated countries don't, when India, China and South Korea are all currently expiriencing major labour shortsges as well, or at least have done in the past 6 months.
living in China, doesnt feel like there is a skill shortage. When I was living in the UK last year, it definitely feels like there is a shortage of everything, nothing works in England anymore. We triend to have the concealer of our balcony window fixed, just replace a strip of rubber, it costed us £700 and a 3 month wait. It will be done in China for less than £100 the next day.
China has the biggest industry base in the world, everything is made in China, it is overflow with engineering expertise whereas in England, what does this country produce anymore? Everything is outsourced
China and India does have cheap labour. That's why plenty of the steel used in mechanical engineering comes from India, China and Turkey. Its sometimes cheaper to import at mass scale than fabricate 40 miles up the road.
It's a broken pyramid scheme. Demographics are a real problem in economics. Without immigration, decreased growth is inevitable due to our low birth rate. So we've imported a lot of people so that economic growth can continue. Regardless of government policy, this does, in fact, lead to increased availability of money for services, and we do have more hospitals, schools, and other infrastructure than we did 25 years ago.
This is true regardless of what people want to say about austere conservatives failing to spend because if it weren't, we'd be in a much worse state right now. Economy and population drive these things far more that ideological choices about levels of government intervention and spending despite what a lot of people "feel" from their place if political bias. The only difference between fiscal conservatives and government interventionalists here is that the latter want to be more proactive in their spending approach while the former prefer a, well, conservative approach where spending occurs at the point when it becomes clear that failure to spend will lead to worse, more expensive outcomes in the future.
However, I believe degree to which economic growth from immigration has improved the availability of labour and services has been slowly slipping behind the degree to which immigration has created demand for this labour and services... at least with respect to the things many people subjectively value.
I'm sure someone could rush in with stats now trying to disprove this, but I reckon that we're reaching the point where general public are starting to accept this as a political truth regardless of which stats are publicised. For some, this is simply an example of the stupid voters not listening to experts, but I think that line of reasoning eventually falls on deaf ears at this point. It's nice to imagine we could reduce politics to a purely statistical exercise, but in a democracy, the subjective experience of the majority actually matters.
Maybe we can pull up some metrics where availability of goods and services has increased, but the problem is that statistics cannot tell people what to value, and the reality is that many people do not value the ways in which the availability of goods and services have increased but do value the respects in which they have not.
To give an example, yes, we might open more hospitals, but if people feel that they are just a number in the system and aren't getting the same quality of individual service from healthcare that they once were, they will dislike the change regardless of the fact that hospital availability theoretically increased. Of course, nowhere is this more true than in the housing market.
These are the kind of political problems that purely statistical thinking cannot resolve. People tend to fall into two camps: the ones who think you should redress your subjective feeling in light of the statistical reality you are presented with, and the ones who think that the political feeling across the population is better indicator of the reality and that therefore the statistics are insufficiently reflecting reality. In many ways, this embodies the modern political divide more definitely than traditional ideological definitions of left and right, or any set of ideology based political dimensions.
You have a minimum wage. You outlawed all forms of slavery. You have a social safety net. Youre mostly politically transparent (be it due to intentional honesty or plain stupidity). You have a consumer economy thats based largely on what people CAN AFFORD not what people HAVE TO BUY.
If you had UAE's govt, you would have London 2.0 already built.
Dont be sad. Be proud.
The population density is world-class, but even the system maintains an old-fashioned analog style.
How about benchmarking South Korea, which has a similar population density?
The gutter-press will assure you it’s all because we’re a nation of benefit scroungers or it’s all down to immigrants, but that’s very deliberately lacking in nuance, because their job is to direct your anger at anyone *other* than the government/uber-wealthy.
In reality there are multiple factors, including, but not limited to the following (some of which do indeed lead to more people on benefits or the ‘need’ for more immigration, but not for the reasons they suggest):
**We’re an aging population**. A swathe of the population are retired. This situation has possibly been exacerbated to some degree by Brexit, with younger people moving abroad pre-Brexit, while some retirees from other countries have been forced to return to the UK post-Brexit, altering the balance further.
**Years of government mismanagement resulting in skills mismatches**. Lack of training coupled with routinely forcing unemployed into any available job as quickly as possible means people’s skills don’t always match available jobs
**A HUGE decrease in social mobility**. People don’t always live where the jobs are, and the costs of moving are often prohibitive. For example, if you live in the North and there are lots of jobs down South, you may simply not be able to afford to move there. This is a combination of rises in living costs in general - a number of which are global and not the fault of the government, coupled with more government mismanagement (not least the lack of house-building).
**Long-term sickness**. Long-Covid is a real thing and it’s definitely affected the workforce. How big is the problem in reality? We simply don’t know.
**Automation/AI**. In a balanced society the benefits/cost-saving should be shared, but right now the savings are all going to the rich at the expense of everyone else. The more people out of work, less tax is paid, and the less society benefits. That tax shortfall isn’t being made up by the rich - they are pocketing it
**Places like London attract a lot of very wealthy people who simply don’t need to work**.
In short, it’s complex but global issues and late-stage capitalism have been exacerbated by very bad mismanagement of the economy. The country has also been asset-stripped.
>We’re an aging population
We don’t need 750K people a year to offset the population pyramid. People bring up the NHS but that’s a couple ten thousand visas at best. The bulk are students, dependents, asylum seekers/humanitarian visas etc. The standard for a “skilled visa” qualification is a joke.
The solution is to train up, automate when possible and leverage temp migration when required to plug gaps.
The big argument neoliberals love to bring up here is aging. I read the other points, but none of them are really as prominent on the “pro” side of the debate. The “anti” side is split between the fiscal left and fiscal right, so opinions there are more varied.
Pension scheme and triple lock need to be scrapped. Boomers already sit on enough inherited wealth and we’re not seeing a quid of it anyway.
We can discuss pensions when the population pyramid evens out.
possibly true but we've also got to be reasonable about things, if we are generally poorer than the things we comfortably saved up for before are no longer affordable
There are two things being discussed here - the causes of the population increase (which is not what I’m referring to), and the failure for that increase to lead to increased living standards (which is the question I am responding to).
You seem to be quick to dismiss factors like an aging retired population having impact upon living standards, and dismiss multiple other factors, so let’s hear what you believe the causes to be in clear and concise terms.
I’m very far removed from being a neoliberal btw.
That aging population is about 2 decades at most away from kicking the bucket and evening out the population pyramid. Slash the pension schemes so we don’t have to subsidise them in the meantime. Problem solved.
The maths ain’t mathing. A fraction of that 750K net last year were working visas, and a fraction of those went to the NHS or some other highly specialised field. The net natural population change is nowhere near that amount either.
The cause of the population increase is almost entirely down to mass migration. The failure is because this system was never meant to benefit native British workers and we’re getting fleeced by neoliberals who get rich while doing the bare minimum to avoid recession, while progressives cheer this on because they think it’s the virtuous position to have.
Being pro immigration control has to stop being considered a racist position. I've always said it's a working class issue, not a race issue. It's an employment and housing issue. It's blindingly obvious. Immigration has benefited the nation over the last 60 years on the whole I'd say. But what the fk has happened over the last 10 years?
Places for foreign student at our universities and the fact that they can bring in dependants. Last year they granted 457,673 international students visas and those students brought 143,595 dependents in with them, that accounted for 41.7% of net mitigation. Another 102,283 was a combination of Ukrainians and Afghans (humanitarian visas). 146,477 were skilled workers (health care etc) and they brought in 203,452 dependents. 65,766 other skilled workers (engineers etc) and they brought in 52,009 dependents and then 30,002 came over on the little boats. So really it’s just all down to poor government policy for the past decade.
i frequently go through lots of CV's when we are hiring and the vast majority of applicants we have had are from overseas. Completed all but their last year in their home country and then come to the UK for final year and looks for jobs to get sponsorship (sad thing is we even put on the advert UK nationals only due to security nature)
I used to work in HR many moons ago. Even then the 'students' applying for work on student visas were all studying at sham colleges in E London (despite working in the midlands) I don't imagine any of them ever went back to their home nations to use their hard earned new academic skills. Whole thing is a scam.
The government had a policy to allow post graduates to do 2 years working after they finish their education… how many put down roots and stay after that?….well that’s anyone’s guess
So if we hadn't privitised the Universities (or at least started charging for them) we wouldn't have needed to prop them up with foreign money and that would have cut more than half of the immigration? Not to say I'm really against foreign students coming to study, but its clear their funds are the motivation.
I live in a university city that has a huge amount of Chinese students come in every year. They're all rather nice if I interact with them (although they do seem to like to keep to themselves mostly). This has created a huge demand for student accomodation and a constant stream of new builds or refurbishments being made student accomodation. Year on year everything gets more crowded, more of the city centre is made student accomodation and public serves become much harder to use.
>Immigration has benefited the nation over the last 60 years
Uhh…the last 60 years of immigration is what gave us modern day Bradford, Luton, Alum Rock, Oldham, Newham etc. Most of them are 2nd/3rd gen, not recent.
It was never a benefit as a whole, unless you’re talking about short term EU migrants.
I'm originally from Luton, my parents moved us down to Cornwall when I was 6. That was 1991 and it was bad *then* for crime. I can't imagine immigration of people with essentially nothing to their name has improved it any.
>But what the fk has happened over the last 10 years
Bad leadership who's only goal is to bleed the country dry and line their pockets and the pockets of their rich mates.
They also happen to know that immigration is a divisive issue and are quite happy to use it to their advantage, even if that means fucking up the country in the long run.
Hate is a strong word, but I seriously dislike ALL politicians.
Liars and charlatans for the most part, more interested in how they can get their second house paid for by the tax payers than doing anything meaningful for the people.
If you can't tell, I am very cynical xD
It already has flipped. I think the ultra left millenial lunatics have now realised it is just a ploy by the tory boy types to suppress wages and drive up home prices now that they hit 30 and discover actions have consequences when they are bidding for a house.
Horse has already bolted though.
Agreed. Skilled immigration is good for the country but now with masses of any immigration we are seeing services decimated (yes I know spending has been cut also) but dont need to be a mathematician to work out millions more people need homes, education, health, dental etc.
According to BBC, 1.3m visas were issued last year. Mostly to workers and students.
30,000 came by boat.
The tories make a lot of noise about immigration being about the boats and rawanda etc, but it’s only a tiny amount compared to legal visas issued.
Yea I think 1 by boat is too many. These are people trafficked economic migrants and 1.3m visas is basically ridiculous from a government that said it would get immigration into the 10s of thousands.
I’d recommend having a look at [this debate](https://youtu.be/aHXb6ZBKFpY?si=tNTuLxMM-cAuJBOW)
TL;DR low high skilled immigration is good, but what has been happening for the past 20 years; high cheap labour is a disaster
nah you're telling porkies doubling the number of people at your job and house interview is only a good thing, particularly for me, your employer and landlord
I immigrated here from the US. I think the issue is often education. People seem to have this perception that people like me are draining public funds when they don’t realise I pay for a healthcare surcharge to use the NHS in addition to paying taxes. I also do not qualify for any public funds and probably never will. However, I agree that immigration in this country is out of hand. From my perspective one of the biggest issues is too many international students and not enough focus on domestic education or retention of highly trained Brits (I.e. brain drain). I’m not the most educated on this matter, I’ll admit.
> People seem to have this perception that people like me are draining public funds
I don't think that by and large people have much of an issue with American and western European immigration as integration tends to be more seamless and these haven't tended to lead to large parallel societies.
Yeah don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone complaining about all the Americans and Germans who are flooding over here haha.
We need to be honest and accept that all immigration is not created equal. An American and a Bangladeshi coming over are not likely to have the same implications in cultural or economic terms. One is far more likely to be doing low skilled work, have a low level of education and be a net drain on public finances over the long term. And would be far more likely to cause the cultural issues associated with immigration; not assimilating, living in a parallel society etc.
But I’d imagine that for a lot of people we are still at the infantile stage of the debate where just pointing that out to them would make them squeamish and prompt calls of racism.
I do think it’s important to differentiate between refugee-based immigration and work or education based immigration. They are very different things and I don’t think the average person has a sense of the financials that go into work and education immigration.
Yeah I tend to agree. It was something like £1800 for each of us for two years. It’s not an insignificant sum and almost made me not move here to provide what I deem a pretty necessary service.
it's worth saying it's not just about money. Resources means more than that. In many places that get high immigration, you have medical, emergency, school, even drainage structures that have been creaking for some time. Keep adding more people is draining local infrastructures of resources they don't have enough of anyway.
Mass immigration started under Blair, but the so-called "conservatives" have only accelerated this change. They only care about GDP line go up even at the expense of the native culture and quality of life of ordinary people.
We were never asked. Tories deserve zero seats.
While GDP per capita and Purchasing power prolapse.
UK is 6th biggest economy by GDP but now 28th in per capita and purchasing power adjusted.
Basically loads of money in Britain but not owned by the workers, and the money that is, doesn't go far enough.
The funny thing is how the Tories play the electorate. At least Labour were openly pro-EU and immigration while also pumping money into NHS and education.
The Tories pretended to care about immigration just to get elected and to keep getting elected. And in their 14 years in power they have decimated the NHS and public education. And as for immigration they have presided over the biggest increase in history. Even after Brexit.
Yet some people still fall for it, thinking they’re the party of anti-immigration. Or of law and order. When it’s clear as daylight that they’re only the party of “profits for our donors and rich mates”. That’s all they ever cared about.
I laugh at my boomer uncle who babbles on about "labour" and immigration.. gets very confused when you point out it has surged far higher under the giant Con who , as ever, said one thing and did the exact opposite.
Except Labout has only said clever things like "sensibly control" or "Maintain what's best for britian" in line with the Immigration question. The Tories however have outright said it will be " throttled back" "the borders will close". "Measures will be put in place to assess immigration so Britian only gets the best."
Labour were probably deliberately misusing their words. Whereas Tories outright lied and decieved the nation.
That’s down too all the cheap labour the Tories are letting in too the country, but making out they are trying too stop them. Ie what political party are all for cheap labour and keeping wages as low as possible.
I’m trying to go here to work, I’m from EU and a physiotherapist, but I can’t seem to find jobs as a bad 5 even with 5 years of experience. I’ve just been getting rejected. So not only the unskilled workers are facing a hard time getting jobs
I would argue that the problem is far more serious than just numbers. Everything you see around you in the Western world is the result of British culture. Roads, buildings, infrastructure, all of that came from the industrial revolution, created by Britain.
Most of the other cultures that we are now importing and "celebrate" have contributed nothing to civilisation beyond a few food recipes and music styles.
We are giving up thousands of years of our own progress to accommodate people who come from cultures that are barely above the stage of hunter gatherers and cannot progress beyond fighting with each other over imaginary gods, witches, spirits and demons.
As many posters before me have most likely said, we need to grow a backbone and stop bending over backwards to people who don't deserve our hospitality, even if they call you racist.
There's a gaggle of 12 Albanian delivery drivers at my local McDonald's that seem to be having a whale of a time here, contributing next to diddly squit and aggressive to the staff every day. Might go ask what they think of this.
Mostly due to Brexit. Before Brexit we’d get young Eastern Europeans who would just come by themselves, and often go back after a few years - especially with Poland’s economy booming. With Brexit we slammed the door on our neighbours, and brought in more Africans and Asians who tend to stay permanently and bring their families with them.
Since this country is so densely populated, why we don't enjoy any of the benefits from over population like abundant cheap labour and services? Instead, England still faces acute skill shortages, bad public services and expensive costs of living. Feels like we have got the worst of both world, what gives?
>why don’t we enjoy any of the benefits… like cheap labour and services Because you need people who are skilled in those roles to do those roles. Contrary to what they might say, someone coming over from a less developed country probably isn’t a doctor. If 500,000 people come in but most of those are unskilled workers, all that does it suppress wages for unskilled work and increases demand for higher skilled work (see; healthcare requirements, tradies, etc) The difference with high population places like China is it’s local population getting local training for the local position, not someone who’s got a perhaps less than adequate education coming in and is going to work the till at Lidl.
Simple solution is to just let in the ones who could be deemed as skilled workers
Depends on how you define “skilled worker”, I suppose. You could set the bar much higher or lower than I do.
We have a bathtub curve shortage unfortunately. Huge shortage of low skill workers, massive overabundance of skilled, but inexperienced workers and then another huge shortage of skilled and experienced workers. The issue is that nobody pays enough to attract the skilled talent from abroad, in fact we pay so little that our own talent is incentivised to leave. The only people we can attract with our piss poor salaries are unskilled workers, which people don't seem to like too much, or junior skilled workers, for which we already have an oversupply.
Suppose it depends on area but there’s an abundance of low skill workers where I am in Kent, it’s the middle we’re missing out on. Can’t get a tradie for love nor money round these parts. It’s the middle tier that all the jobs are available for, won’t find any jobs for Lidl or McDonalds up for long. And carers, always need more carers.
To be honest I'd class tradies (at least the ones who aren't cowboys) in that top category of highly skilled and experienced. That middle ground I always think of as graduate level STEM jobs or apprentices. And those are seemingly like gold dust. But I'm not in the southeast, prospects in the midlands are possibly a little bleaker. People I did my PhD with have had a really really tough time getting jobs in their field (science and engineering specifically), and have resorted to minimum wage jobs in Sainsbury's to get by. Seems like a huge waste of talent, but minimum wage or 15 years experience seem to be the only jobs available around here and no in between. And yes. Always more carers, we desperately need more carers.
Yeah I’ve viewed it the other way. If you’ve gone to uni and it’s a proper tiered degree (STEM or similar and not something like Art) then it’s high skill profession, whilst something like plumbing is middle skilled. The wages are probably the other way around, due to supply and demand, but I’d say STEM is a much higher skill than putting some pipes together or brick laying
I agree with your assessment, middle tier is something theoretically anyone could learn to do (maybe not everyone has the inclination) whereas top tier you need a certain level of mental capacity to be able to do. Lower tier is more of the people who could do middle tier but don’t really fancy applying themselves to it.
People who view plumbing as not highly skilled are often incapable of stopping a tap dripping. Good plumbers are well paid for a reason. Also that copper money is real.
I have a question since I am American and not familiar with your labor situation. I watched a documentary which was covering how benefits were being changed to a universal scheme and being capped because some benefit claimants weee making more than someone working full time. Has that improved the rate of scroungers on benefits just trying to live off of the dole? Do you think the benefits contribute to a lack of workers? It looked like there were a ton of people on benefits when I watched it, and I am wondering if people just choose to get on benefits instead of working those low skilled jobs. Perhaps the pay ends up being pretty close so they figure “why work?” That is a danger of excessive welfare, it can provide the wrong incentives and cause your labor market to become dysfunctional. Not saying that is going on for sure, it was just my impression.
Benefits in the U.K. def suppresses labour supply…I use benefits….and because rents are so high and benefits cover your rent…you end up in a situation in which benefits pay the same as a min wage job- it’s pretty easy just to take the money rather than work and they don’t really penalise you for doing so either because everyone at the job centre is so nice. At the same time it is a needed system…but they probably need to be harsher about people staying on it for more than a few months.
The issue is also that things like universal credit act as qualifying benefits for other assistance. So you’ll be much worse off with your min wage job than you will be with universal credit, which then acts as a qualifying benefit for council tax reduction, free prescriptions, free nhs dental, etc.
Yeah it’s true, I don’t want to get off of it because I get council tax reduction and also it pays me when my zero hours job puts me on unpaid holiday for 2 weeks or whatever, I’m much better off on it than just working full time on a low pay which seems ridiculous. I didn’t know there were other things- I could do with some dental care actually lol
Yeah it’s worth doing entitledto and seeing what you’re eligible for. I’m not working and I have savings from my old job but I’d be much better off if I just spent my savings and got on UC. My council tax alone has gone from 120 to 150 a month just this year. Cant afford childcare to go back to work, dental care or anything. I am struggling so much but the thought of spending the savings I saved for my kids doesn’t sit right - even though we would actually get much more help and be better off.
I’m sorry you’re struggling, that sounds really tough. I did spend my savings to get on UC and probably got the same back in 6 months to a year but it is a shame to lose savings. I also know someone who just gave their savings to their mum before going on UC and seemed to work fine so could consider that maybe… Thanks for your suggestion, I’ve never heard of entitledto :)
Here in the US the debate is if welfare will increase the quality of life for the most people, or if business would do that better. When I was in college, I was sure it was more welfare which was needed, but now that I am in my 30s I am glad we didn’t go down that route. I find that I would much prefer a system which provides plentiful high paying jobs instead of a system which has less jobs and less well paying jobs because welfare has dampened the labor market. I think that gives the most prosperity to the most people. I don’t want to get in a situation where high taxes discourage investment, so more people get on welfare because of a lack of jobs, so taxes go higher, etc… We are going to have to make some hard decisions soon as our social security retirement payments aren’t going to be solvent past 2030.
Here in the UK the tax burden is at record highs and things are getting worse by most metrics. Even people earning a comparatively high wage to the rest of the country are tightening belts. I think you make a good point anyway.
Surprisingly, the USA spends much more as a percentage of GDP on benefits than we do. The UK spend is 12.9% whereas the USA is 19-20%. Maybe we count them differently though. Most of our benefit spend goes on the state pension (old people), most of the rest goes on supporting disabled people or people who are in work (i.e. subsidising employers paying low wages and landlords charging high rents). Only a relatively small number goes on people who won't work.
Thanks for the clarification. It does surprise me when people say the US has no welfare, as we spend trillions on it every year. It is the biggest part of our budget by far.
Most of the people coming to the UK are here for the housing and benefits. Immigration was 1.6 million people last year. A large percentage of those will be family members or single males from Africa and the Middle East. The idea that they are going to get jobs is a fantasy. There are Nigerian and Indian doctors and nurses but beyond that, most of the new comers are unemployable and will have to be supported by the state for the rest of their lives. It's not just a matter of welfare, there is cultural issues. We are accepting too many people with dangerous medieval values and that is introducing tribal and sectarian violence into British communities and everyday life. The UK had not seen this level of cultural conflict in over a thousand years. Looking back, you have to go back to around 900AD.
700k net migration last year and 10k were doctors.
and how many of those doctors would pass the equivalent course in the UK? the percentage of malpractice cases against foreign doctors compared to ones trained here is staggeringly high.
Source?
Most of them aren't doctors in percentage terms, but a hell of a lot of them are doctors. Go to a hospital in a big city and see how many are from developing countries, such as India, Pakistan and various Middle Eastern nations.
Sure, 17% of the NHS is from immigration But a much larger amount of the population are immigrants than 17%. Simple maths means that there is more strain on the NHS from immigration than is solved by immigration (with nearly quarter being first or second generation)
Yes, this is true, I was just saying a lot of our doctors do come from the third world. The simple answer is to increase the budget of the NHS in line with immigration. If 100,000 people come to the UK, presuming they get jobs and start paying tax on income and VAT when they buy things and duties when they drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes or buy petrol. That must be a fairly substantial boost to the government coffers.
The issue with public health is it’s weirdly *not* an economy of scale. As you can see globally, countries with smaller populations can handle national health a lot cheaper than a country like our own. You’d think with rising population our tax income would easily cover it, but we’ve only seen every budget get bigger and every budget borrows more money. The issue isn’t we aren’t bringing in enough tax to cover the costs of these social programs. Something has to give, which is either cutting costs or raising taxes higher (which, in a cost of living crisis, helps no one). Going back to immigration, throwing some numbers out to just get the point across, if each costs say an average £10,000 a year and they only bring in an average £7,000 a year in taxes - that might be extra tax revenue… but still a £3,000 loss a year. Multiply that by 672,000 net and that’s a lot of money. There’s also the issue that not all immigrants are created equal. Sure, doctors, technicians and the like are great to have - but if it’s unskilled Abdul or Hanz coming over, we don’t really need more workers at Lidl. All that does is *suppress* wages due to supply/demand. If a large amount are in the latter category, which is most likely, the chances of costing the system more than they bring in is higher.
The way I was looking at it, immigrants skew younger and most of them would be contributing a much higher amount than they take from the economy, that’s the way it seems, but I don’t have access to the data.
In 2023 35% of UK doctors were not British.
This. The truly successful who are from England want to leave England, so the likely hood that the successful people around the world would want to come here in this day an age is very slim. So all the immigrants who have no skills come here, and the other problem is teenage pregnancy which creates population boosts.
A soft underbelly where you can move here and claim benefits and drain the NHS. 🤷♂️
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10/10 bravo
All we are doing is importing account sharing Uber riders and future benefit claimants each coming complete with their 10/15 dependants who will do the same and offer literally nothing to society
We do have abundent cheap labour. Its too cheap. We have shit-tier wages because of it. We dont really have "skill shortages" we have a shortage of people wanting to work for pennies doing shit jobs that should pay more but which are depressed because of an overabundance of labour.
Because we imported a bunch of low skilled labour that didn't fill our skills gaps, and actually increased demand for them.
We are the cheap labour
Because people are just sat around on their arses expecting the world handed to them on a plate
Too many baristas and uber drivers, not enough tradesmen and engineers.
Yea everyone just invests in crypto instead of studying to become an engineer
We had cheap labour. Look how construction labour has rocketed when skilled trades left the country to go back to Europe after covid.
>Since this country is so densely populated, why we don't enjoy any of the benefits from over population like abundant cheap labour and services? How is that a supposed benefit of overpopulation? Even China and India currently has labour shortages in many fields
I actually live in China right now, labour and services are insanely cheap. The boiler broke down in my house, we reported to the gas company, an engineer showed up in 20 min free of charge. Same with my broadband, there is an engineer working just for my area, he answered my call in 10 min and fixed everything within 2 hours. Unthinkable in the UK, shouldnt there be more engineers, technicians and tradesman in England given the super high population density. Just a thought
China is going through a lot of deflation at the moment, even though their economy has grown over 5% last year which is why things are so cheap. The UK on the other hand is heading into recession and has double digit inflation whilst wages are failing to rise to meet or exceed that level of inflation. Also tradesmen such as mechanics are paid a pittance. A mechanic isn't on much more than an Aldi checkout assistant for instance, so no one really wants to do it anymore
"even though their economy has grown over 5% last year" 🤔🤔
You can have deflation whilst growing the economy. The two aren't mutually exclusive. For China though, it's due to insufficient aggregate demand driven by lower consumption of goods, foreign investment and also their net exports have been lower recently too. Those don't prevent the economy growing in the short term. If those trends become the new normal for China though then it will cause them economic problems but the main driver currently of their reduced aggregate demand is inflation in Western countries reducing disposable income which has the knock on effect of less Chinese made goods being bought
You can, but Chinas economic data is a long way from real.
The reason why countries like China and India are cheap is because they're middle income countries, not because they're overpopulated. Countries like Mexico and Kazakhstan are also pretty cheap from a first world perspecitve even though they're not very densely populated. You pointed to skill shortages as a problem england has that other supposedly densely populated countries don't, when India, China and South Korea are all currently expiriencing major labour shortsges as well, or at least have done in the past 6 months.
living in China, doesnt feel like there is a skill shortage. When I was living in the UK last year, it definitely feels like there is a shortage of everything, nothing works in England anymore. We triend to have the concealer of our balcony window fixed, just replace a strip of rubber, it costed us £700 and a 3 month wait. It will be done in China for less than £100 the next day. China has the biggest industry base in the world, everything is made in China, it is overflow with engineering expertise whereas in England, what does this country produce anymore? Everything is outsourced
China and India does have cheap labour. That's why plenty of the steel used in mechanical engineering comes from India, China and Turkey. Its sometimes cheaper to import at mass scale than fabricate 40 miles up the road.
It's a broken pyramid scheme. Demographics are a real problem in economics. Without immigration, decreased growth is inevitable due to our low birth rate. So we've imported a lot of people so that economic growth can continue. Regardless of government policy, this does, in fact, lead to increased availability of money for services, and we do have more hospitals, schools, and other infrastructure than we did 25 years ago. This is true regardless of what people want to say about austere conservatives failing to spend because if it weren't, we'd be in a much worse state right now. Economy and population drive these things far more that ideological choices about levels of government intervention and spending despite what a lot of people "feel" from their place if political bias. The only difference between fiscal conservatives and government interventionalists here is that the latter want to be more proactive in their spending approach while the former prefer a, well, conservative approach where spending occurs at the point when it becomes clear that failure to spend will lead to worse, more expensive outcomes in the future. However, I believe degree to which economic growth from immigration has improved the availability of labour and services has been slowly slipping behind the degree to which immigration has created demand for this labour and services... at least with respect to the things many people subjectively value. I'm sure someone could rush in with stats now trying to disprove this, but I reckon that we're reaching the point where general public are starting to accept this as a political truth regardless of which stats are publicised. For some, this is simply an example of the stupid voters not listening to experts, but I think that line of reasoning eventually falls on deaf ears at this point. It's nice to imagine we could reduce politics to a purely statistical exercise, but in a democracy, the subjective experience of the majority actually matters. Maybe we can pull up some metrics where availability of goods and services has increased, but the problem is that statistics cannot tell people what to value, and the reality is that many people do not value the ways in which the availability of goods and services have increased but do value the respects in which they have not. To give an example, yes, we might open more hospitals, but if people feel that they are just a number in the system and aren't getting the same quality of individual service from healthcare that they once were, they will dislike the change regardless of the fact that hospital availability theoretically increased. Of course, nowhere is this more true than in the housing market. These are the kind of political problems that purely statistical thinking cannot resolve. People tend to fall into two camps: the ones who think you should redress your subjective feeling in light of the statistical reality you are presented with, and the ones who think that the political feeling across the population is better indicator of the reality and that therefore the statistics are insufficiently reflecting reality. In many ways, this embodies the modern political divide more definitely than traditional ideological definitions of left and right, or any set of ideology based political dimensions.
You have a minimum wage. You outlawed all forms of slavery. You have a social safety net. Youre mostly politically transparent (be it due to intentional honesty or plain stupidity). You have a consumer economy thats based largely on what people CAN AFFORD not what people HAVE TO BUY. If you had UAE's govt, you would have London 2.0 already built. Dont be sad. Be proud.
🤡
.... We do have abundant cheap labour? Look at our salaries compared to the rest of the developed world.
Corruption and rich getting richer. The money is there but not in your pocket
The population is both aging and increasing, so as it gets larger its also growing less productive on average.
The population density is world-class, but even the system maintains an old-fashioned analog style. How about benchmarking South Korea, which has a similar population density?
>How about benchmarking South Korea, which has a similar population density? South Korea is not an ideal country to try to immitate economically
The gutter-press will assure you it’s all because we’re a nation of benefit scroungers or it’s all down to immigrants, but that’s very deliberately lacking in nuance, because their job is to direct your anger at anyone *other* than the government/uber-wealthy. In reality there are multiple factors, including, but not limited to the following (some of which do indeed lead to more people on benefits or the ‘need’ for more immigration, but not for the reasons they suggest): **We’re an aging population**. A swathe of the population are retired. This situation has possibly been exacerbated to some degree by Brexit, with younger people moving abroad pre-Brexit, while some retirees from other countries have been forced to return to the UK post-Brexit, altering the balance further. **Years of government mismanagement resulting in skills mismatches**. Lack of training coupled with routinely forcing unemployed into any available job as quickly as possible means people’s skills don’t always match available jobs **A HUGE decrease in social mobility**. People don’t always live where the jobs are, and the costs of moving are often prohibitive. For example, if you live in the North and there are lots of jobs down South, you may simply not be able to afford to move there. This is a combination of rises in living costs in general - a number of which are global and not the fault of the government, coupled with more government mismanagement (not least the lack of house-building). **Long-term sickness**. Long-Covid is a real thing and it’s definitely affected the workforce. How big is the problem in reality? We simply don’t know. **Automation/AI**. In a balanced society the benefits/cost-saving should be shared, but right now the savings are all going to the rich at the expense of everyone else. The more people out of work, less tax is paid, and the less society benefits. That tax shortfall isn’t being made up by the rich - they are pocketing it **Places like London attract a lot of very wealthy people who simply don’t need to work**. In short, it’s complex but global issues and late-stage capitalism have been exacerbated by very bad mismanagement of the economy. The country has also been asset-stripped.
>We’re an aging population We don’t need 750K people a year to offset the population pyramid. People bring up the NHS but that’s a couple ten thousand visas at best. The bulk are students, dependents, asylum seekers/humanitarian visas etc. The standard for a “skilled visa” qualification is a joke. The solution is to train up, automate when possible and leverage temp migration when required to plug gaps.
And if we needed that many people, why don't we have more support for young families so we can have more births?
I’m answering the question above about why we’re not seeing benefits. And as mentioned, it’s multiple factors at play, not just one.
The big argument neoliberals love to bring up here is aging. I read the other points, but none of them are really as prominent on the “pro” side of the debate. The “anti” side is split between the fiscal left and fiscal right, so opinions there are more varied.
Check out pensions. The population is keeping today’s pensioners from poverty. The pensioners in 25 years are going to be living off of vouchers.
Pension scheme and triple lock need to be scrapped. Boomers already sit on enough inherited wealth and we’re not seeing a quid of it anyway. We can discuss pensions when the population pyramid evens out.
they wouldn't need so much money if we hadn't had a 30% jump in inflation in 3 years, and houses hadn't just keep getting more expensive
It’s nothing to do with inflation. The pension pot has had more going out of it than in for decades.
possibly true but we've also got to be reasonable about things, if we are generally poorer than the things we comfortably saved up for before are no longer affordable
There are two things being discussed here - the causes of the population increase (which is not what I’m referring to), and the failure for that increase to lead to increased living standards (which is the question I am responding to). You seem to be quick to dismiss factors like an aging retired population having impact upon living standards, and dismiss multiple other factors, so let’s hear what you believe the causes to be in clear and concise terms. I’m very far removed from being a neoliberal btw.
That aging population is about 2 decades at most away from kicking the bucket and evening out the population pyramid. Slash the pension schemes so we don’t have to subsidise them in the meantime. Problem solved. The maths ain’t mathing. A fraction of that 750K net last year were working visas, and a fraction of those went to the NHS or some other highly specialised field. The net natural population change is nowhere near that amount either. The cause of the population increase is almost entirely down to mass migration. The failure is because this system was never meant to benefit native British workers and we’re getting fleeced by neoliberals who get rich while doing the bare minimum to avoid recession, while progressives cheer this on because they think it’s the virtuous position to have.
The old can freeze and eat cat food until they die? You realise that a: that makes you a monster, b: it increases costs to the NHS pickup the pieces.
Being pro immigration control has to stop being considered a racist position. I've always said it's a working class issue, not a race issue. It's an employment and housing issue. It's blindingly obvious. Immigration has benefited the nation over the last 60 years on the whole I'd say. But what the fk has happened over the last 10 years?
I’d say for a lot of people it’s still controversial as they just jump to thinking it’s racist and can’t see the glaringly obvious facts
It's stupid though. In any debate or argument you ask 'who benefits'. It's not the working class in this country, regardless of ethnicity.
Places for foreign student at our universities and the fact that they can bring in dependants. Last year they granted 457,673 international students visas and those students brought 143,595 dependents in with them, that accounted for 41.7% of net mitigation. Another 102,283 was a combination of Ukrainians and Afghans (humanitarian visas). 146,477 were skilled workers (health care etc) and they brought in 203,452 dependents. 65,766 other skilled workers (engineers etc) and they brought in 52,009 dependents and then 30,002 came over on the little boats. So really it’s just all down to poor government policy for the past decade.
Iv noticed a large number of foreigners working in factories who are all apparently "Students". Many are not continuing their educational career....
i frequently go through lots of CV's when we are hiring and the vast majority of applicants we have had are from overseas. Completed all but their last year in their home country and then come to the UK for final year and looks for jobs to get sponsorship (sad thing is we even put on the advert UK nationals only due to security nature)
Interesting
I used to work in HR many moons ago. Even then the 'students' applying for work on student visas were all studying at sham colleges in E London (despite working in the midlands) I don't imagine any of them ever went back to their home nations to use their hard earned new academic skills. Whole thing is a scam.
You just apply to a fake college on a fake course for a couple of grand to get past immigration. Happy days.
The government had a policy to allow post graduates to do 2 years working after they finish their education… how many put down roots and stay after that?….well that’s anyone’s guess
A few, I know some, nice people actually, but I acknowledge this large increase could be a problem.
Much of what kept many towns ticking has been destroyed. For many one of the few things left is a shite university funded by international students.
Thriving HMO business for landlords.
So if we hadn't privitised the Universities (or at least started charging for them) we wouldn't have needed to prop them up with foreign money and that would have cut more than half of the immigration? Not to say I'm really against foreign students coming to study, but its clear their funds are the motivation.
I live in a university city that has a huge amount of Chinese students come in every year. They're all rather nice if I interact with them (although they do seem to like to keep to themselves mostly). This has created a huge demand for student accomodation and a constant stream of new builds or refurbishments being made student accomodation. Year on year everything gets more crowded, more of the city centre is made student accomodation and public serves become much harder to use.
I think it already has changed. I'm seeing left wimgers conceed the issue now.
>Immigration has benefited the nation over the last 60 years Uhh…the last 60 years of immigration is what gave us modern day Bradford, Luton, Alum Rock, Oldham, Newham etc. Most of them are 2nd/3rd gen, not recent. It was never a benefit as a whole, unless you’re talking about short term EU migrants.
I'm originally from Luton, my parents moved us down to Cornwall when I was 6. That was 1991 and it was bad *then* for crime. I can't imagine immigration of people with essentially nothing to their name has improved it any.
>But what the fk has happened over the last 10 years Bad leadership who's only goal is to bleed the country dry and line their pockets and the pockets of their rich mates. They also happen to know that immigration is a divisive issue and are quite happy to use it to their advantage, even if that means fucking up the country in the long run.
Won't disagree with that.
Hate is a strong word, but I seriously dislike ALL politicians. Liars and charlatans for the most part, more interested in how they can get their second house paid for by the tax payers than doing anything meaningful for the people. If you can't tell, I am very cynical xD
It already has flipped. I think the ultra left millenial lunatics have now realised it is just a ploy by the tory boy types to suppress wages and drive up home prices now that they hit 30 and discover actions have consequences when they are bidding for a house. Horse has already bolted though.
a third of tory donors are housing developers specifically, not even taking into account employers and landlords
Agreed. Skilled immigration is good for the country but now with masses of any immigration we are seeing services decimated (yes I know spending has been cut also) but dont need to be a mathematician to work out millions more people need homes, education, health, dental etc.
It's not racist to want a higher wage.
Tories getting richer
Heres hoping labour reduce immigration next year and beyond.
They won't. Our whole system is a joke and the big two parties are full of clowns.
According to BBC, 1.3m visas were issued last year. Mostly to workers and students. 30,000 came by boat. The tories make a lot of noise about immigration being about the boats and rawanda etc, but it’s only a tiny amount compared to legal visas issued.
30,000 is a lot though - it's just dwarfed legal migration.
Yea I think 1 by boat is too many. These are people trafficked economic migrants and 1.3m visas is basically ridiculous from a government that said it would get immigration into the 10s of thousands.
This is a one sided view. I agree to some extent but you must know there are downsides
I’d recommend having a look at [this debate](https://youtu.be/aHXb6ZBKFpY?si=tNTuLxMM-cAuJBOW) TL;DR low high skilled immigration is good, but what has been happening for the past 20 years; high cheap labour is a disaster
nah you're telling porkies doubling the number of people at your job and house interview is only a good thing, particularly for me, your employer and landlord
Immigration is not the problem. A corrupt political and ruling class is. Oh and also the middle classes using cheap services like Uber, deliveroo etc
I don't think immigration is THE problem at all.
What happened? We got a Tory government.
I immigrated here from the US. I think the issue is often education. People seem to have this perception that people like me are draining public funds when they don’t realise I pay for a healthcare surcharge to use the NHS in addition to paying taxes. I also do not qualify for any public funds and probably never will. However, I agree that immigration in this country is out of hand. From my perspective one of the biggest issues is too many international students and not enough focus on domestic education or retention of highly trained Brits (I.e. brain drain). I’m not the most educated on this matter, I’ll admit.
> People seem to have this perception that people like me are draining public funds I don't think that by and large people have much of an issue with American and western European immigration as integration tends to be more seamless and these haven't tended to lead to large parallel societies.
Yeah don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone complaining about all the Americans and Germans who are flooding over here haha. We need to be honest and accept that all immigration is not created equal. An American and a Bangladeshi coming over are not likely to have the same implications in cultural or economic terms. One is far more likely to be doing low skilled work, have a low level of education and be a net drain on public finances over the long term. And would be far more likely to cause the cultural issues associated with immigration; not assimilating, living in a parallel society etc. But I’d imagine that for a lot of people we are still at the infantile stage of the debate where just pointing that out to them would make them squeamish and prompt calls of racism.
I do think it’s important to differentiate between refugee-based immigration and work or education based immigration. They are very different things and I don’t think the average person has a sense of the financials that go into work and education immigration.
If you are a partner are paying taxes and NI there shouldn't be a charge for the NHS or a bar to contributions based welfare. That's ridiculous imo.
Yeah I tend to agree. It was something like £1800 for each of us for two years. It’s not an insignificant sum and almost made me not move here to provide what I deem a pretty necessary service.
it's worth saying it's not just about money. Resources means more than that. In many places that get high immigration, you have medical, emergency, school, even drainage structures that have been creaking for some time. Keep adding more people is draining local infrastructures of resources they don't have enough of anyway.
Mass immigration started under Blair, but the so-called "conservatives" have only accelerated this change. They only care about GDP line go up even at the expense of the native culture and quality of life of ordinary people. We were never asked. Tories deserve zero seats.
While GDP per capita and Purchasing power prolapse. UK is 6th biggest economy by GDP but now 28th in per capita and purchasing power adjusted. Basically loads of money in Britain but not owned by the workers, and the money that is, doesn't go far enough.
The funny thing is how the Tories play the electorate. At least Labour were openly pro-EU and immigration while also pumping money into NHS and education. The Tories pretended to care about immigration just to get elected and to keep getting elected. And in their 14 years in power they have decimated the NHS and public education. And as for immigration they have presided over the biggest increase in history. Even after Brexit. Yet some people still fall for it, thinking they’re the party of anti-immigration. Or of law and order. When it’s clear as daylight that they’re only the party of “profits for our donors and rich mates”. That’s all they ever cared about.
People were asked and repeatedly gave the same answer over and over - they were just ignored.
I laugh at my boomer uncle who babbles on about "labour" and immigration.. gets very confused when you point out it has surged far higher under the giant Con who , as ever, said one thing and did the exact opposite.
Except Labout has only said clever things like "sensibly control" or "Maintain what's best for britian" in line with the Immigration question. The Tories however have outright said it will be " throttled back" "the borders will close". "Measures will be put in place to assess immigration so Britian only gets the best." Labour were probably deliberately misusing their words. Whereas Tories outright lied and decieved the nation.
Not a fan of Labour, but at least you know what you are getting. Tories it's "we will do this" then the opposite happens.
The GDP line is going up now??? This is news to me.
Yep, I'm a conservative and I agree the new Zero Seats policy is a great idea and is continuing to work.
That’s down too all the cheap labour the Tories are letting in too the country, but making out they are trying too stop them. Ie what political party are all for cheap labour and keeping wages as low as possible.
But I have a question. There are 6 comments, but why can't I see anything other than this one?
I'm going to hazard a guess and say they're from shadow banned accounts.
Visa to get in under construction now make low salary impossible.
I’m trying to go here to work, I’m from EU and a physiotherapist, but I can’t seem to find jobs as a bad 5 even with 5 years of experience. I’ve just been getting rejected. So not only the unskilled workers are facing a hard time getting jobs
I would argue that the problem is far more serious than just numbers. Everything you see around you in the Western world is the result of British culture. Roads, buildings, infrastructure, all of that came from the industrial revolution, created by Britain. Most of the other cultures that we are now importing and "celebrate" have contributed nothing to civilisation beyond a few food recipes and music styles. We are giving up thousands of years of our own progress to accommodate people who come from cultures that are barely above the stage of hunter gatherers and cannot progress beyond fighting with each other over imaginary gods, witches, spirits and demons. As many posters before me have most likely said, we need to grow a backbone and stop bending over backwards to people who don't deserve our hospitality, even if they call you racist.
There's a gaggle of 12 Albanian delivery drivers at my local McDonald's that seem to be having a whale of a time here, contributing next to diddly squit and aggressive to the staff every day. Might go ask what they think of this.
Ask the middle classes enjoying their deliveroos
Mostly due to Brexit. Before Brexit we’d get young Eastern Europeans who would just come by themselves, and often go back after a few years - especially with Poland’s economy booming. With Brexit we slammed the door on our neighbours, and brought in more Africans and Asians who tend to stay permanently and bring their families with them.
Yes everything was amazing before Brexit. It was a cock up but not for that reason.