29 million Bulgarians and Romanians will gain the right to live and work unrestricted in our country

[HaX]

Cheap immigrant labour, businesses loves it.

Absolutely, anyone who says otherwise needs to step out of their middle class ivory tower and walk in the shoes of a working class person. *I come from a middle class background myself

Although I can't back up my assertions with any official reports, I can reflect on personal experience.

My girlfriend's brother, who isn't particularly ambitious or intellectual, worked in food production plants in South Lincolnshire (Bourne and Spalding) throughout his late teens and 20s.

He used to be able to earn £7-8 per hour back in the early 00s, which in those days was significantly above the national minimum wage.

It wasn't until 2005-2006 that he noticed that as an Englishman, he was becoming more and more of a minority in his workplace. It was at around this time that rates for jobs in factories starting decreasing down towards minimum wage.

Immigration has exacerbated an existing surplus of labour, which means that there is more competition for jobs.As a consequence people are more willing to accept lower wages just to get a job.

In the case of Eastern Europeans, they are willing to work for lower wages than their English counterparts as they are able to benefit from currency based wage arbitrage. The savings they are able to build here while working a NMW job and living in a house share will go a long way in Poland.

We are in a horrible situation in this country ; gone are the days when you could have a secure and stable family life by just "having a job". Anyone wanting to build any sort of life here has to have a career, whilst being constantly competitive and innovative.

To use a cliche, we should work to live, not live to work. Sadly the latter is becoming the norm and we are facing increased competition to do so.

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Absolutely, anyone who says otherwise needs to step out of their middle class ivory tower and walk in the shoes of a working class person. *I come from a middle class background myself

You should broaden your research beyond a couple of anecdotes.

Start with: http://www.lowpay.gov.uk/lowpay/report/pdf/8990-BIS-Low Pay_Tagged.pdf

then look at: http://restud.oxfordjournals.org/co...full?sid=3c4add73-4d54-468c-92c2-48862e00c5d0

and beyond... http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?as_ylo=2009&q=effect+of+immigration+in+uk+wages

Many reasonably comprehensive studies of various backgrounds and commissions, majority arriving at the same conclusion; wage depression due to immigration was minimal, and in fact caused inflation for higher skilled work.

 

[GAC]

im sure these studies asked the cleaners in london hotels who where being paid under min wage.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19756137

 

[Danthus]

You should broaden your research beyond a couple of anecdotes.

Start with: http://www.lowpay.gov.uk/lowpay/report/pdf/8990-BIS-Low Pay_Tagged.pdf

then look at: http://restud.oxfordjournals.org/co...full?sid=3c4add73-4d54-468c-92c2-48862e00c5d0

and beyond... http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?as_ylo=2009&q=effect+of+immigration+in+uk+wages

Many reasonably comprehensive studies of various backgrounds and commissions, majority arriving at the same conclusion; wage depression due to immigration was minimal, and in fact caused inflation for higher skilled work.

You neglect to mention that is is low paid workers who suffer.

 

[apatia77]

You do know that most people that come from within EU work hard and pay their taxes just as everyone else.

 

[Danthus]

You do know that most people that come from within EU work hard and pay their taxes just as everyone else.

And?

 

[Cosimo]

And?

You heard it here first.

 

[HaX]

You should broaden your research beyond a couple of anecdotes.

Start with: http://www.lowpay.gov.uk/lowpay/report/pdf/8990-BIS-Low Pay_Tagged.pdf

then look at: http://restud.oxfordjournals.org/co...full?sid=3c4add73-4d54-468c-92c2-48862e00c5d0

and beyond... http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?as_ylo=2009&q=effect+of+immigration+in+uk+wages

Many reasonably comprehensive studies of various backgrounds and commissions, majority arriving at the same conclusion; wage depression due to immigration was minimal, and in fact caused inflation for higher skilled work.

Are you suggesting that supply and demand logic doesn't apply to the labour market? Any saleable asset or commodity will increase in value if in short supply, or decrease in value if in surplus.

Factoring in the off-shoring of manufacturing (and now service sector) jobs, adding to the pool of available labour will increase that surplus, and thus decrease wages and increase unemployment.

Although we may not have seen nominal wage cuts across the entire labour market, I'm confident that a large number of sectors will have been affected. Furthermore, inflation is doing it's job and the majority of people are receiving cuts to their real wages without even realising.

According to the ONS, the latest RPI figure is 2.7%. Like many government statistics, this figure is manipulated through the inclusion of certain imported goods and services which have decreased in cost. Real inflation on staple life goods (eg food, fuel and energy) is significantly higher. I'd conservatively estimate this to sit at at least 7%.

This old quote seems to ring very true when discussing economics ; There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

 

[v0n]

In the case of Eastern Europeans, they are willing to work for lower wages than their English counterparts as they are able to benefit from currency based wage arbitrage. The savings they are able to build here while working a NMW job and living in a house share will go a long way in Poland.

It's a bit of a myth though. Life in Poland is not THAT cheap. It used to be the case 10-15 years ago that you were able to buy a small council flat in Poland after working for a year in some sort of unskilled job with annual salary of £15,000. But that's long gone now after Poland equalized economy over the last decade in order to join Euro. Yes, a lot of things in Poland are cheaper, but it's more to do with "reality check vs job at hand" rather than pure lower price point advantage. As a real life example - car mechanics and related trades don't get to charge typical UK rate of labour, so authorized dealers do entire panel resprays for £70 all inclusive, but that's because in a market where you have hundreds of thousands of people with training and will to stand in a booth and move spray gun from left to right all day, that's the realistic value of the service rendered. It stems from competition.

That said however, most of the products in shops, be it clothing, furniture or supermarket shelves have the same labels, mostly the same brands as in UK, with very similar price. Majority of imported goods - electronics, cars, typical household equipment etc, is actually more expensive than in UK, due to local business rates and higher VAT at 23%.

The legends about Polish packers or shelf stackers squatting ten per room with sleeping arrangements based on strict rotation and feeding on Tesco Basics bread and discounted cans with logo of a kitten on the tin while sending the remainder £100 (plus child benefits) of their minimum wage back home to ensure their family of five can roll in luxuries and lead some sort of lavish lifestyle on Sterling power, if ever were true, are definitely long gone by now and just an urban myth.

 

[HaX]

It's a bit of a myth though. Life in Poland is not THAT cheap. It used to be the case 10-15 years ago that you were able to buy a small council flat in Poland after working for a year in some sort of unskilled job with annual salary of £15,000. <snipped for formatting purposes>

An interesting post. It does however, elude to the fact that a Polish worker can earn more here (in a completely unskilled job) than they can over there in a skilled job. As a consequence, they'll have more chance of saving for a house deposit on the UK NMW than they will in Poland.

As a real life example - car mechanics and related trades don't get to charge typical UK rate of labour, so authorized dealers do entire panel resprays for £70 all inclusive, but that's because in a market where you have hundreds of thousands of people with training and will to stand in a booth and move spray gun from left to right all day, that's the realistic value of the service rendered. It stems from competition.

It really is a race to the bottom, isn't it

 

[Hatter The Mad]

You neglect to mention that is is low paid workers who suffer.

By -0.5%... which have been more than compensated for by government policy in the last decade.

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Are you suggesting

I am suggesting nothing - the facts are right there, a few clicks away. Have a look.

 

[GAC]

of course they have hatter, you should go talk to actual people rather than read gov reports and see what its really like out there.

as i posted above im sure the cleaners in them hotels will agree with your reports on min wage pay.

 

[Hatter The Mad]

ather than read gov reports and see what its really like out there.

There's more than government reports out there, confirming the same thing.

you should go talk to actual people r

What, a few mates at the pub with anecdotes to share, or a more rigorous study of actual... facts? Hmm... you're absolutely right. In fact, we should probably do all of our medical studies this way too. Screw studies, let's ask our heavily biased mates. Even the one who prays and the nutter who believes in homeopathy.

 

[Phil99]

as i posted above im sure the cleaners in them hotels will agree with your reports on min wage pay.

That was because they couldn't legally employ them directly. When the restrictions are lifted they will be able to and so workers will be able to demand minimum wage.

 

[GAC]

no need to be condescending about it but if that's your attitude about talking to the people who this has effected im guessing il give up trying to argue the point as its obvious your minds made up and nothing anyone says will change it.

 

[estebanrey]

What, a few mates at the pub with anecdotes to share, or a more rigorous study of actual... facts? Hmm... you're absolutely right. In fact, we should probably do all of our medical studies this way too. Screw studies, let's ask our heavily biased mates. Even the one who prays and the nutter who believes in homeopathy.

Problem is with a lot of studies though is a conclusion is derived first and then the evidence is found to support it. If you're a company who's being paid a lot of money to analyse a Government scheme by the Government there tends to be a pressure to 'give them what they want to hear' rather than be honest.

It also allows people like you to say "they did a study, see proof!"

I work in the civil service and I'm often asked to write reports and do feasibilities studies. If I come back with an answer they didn't want it's pretty obvious and I'm encouraged to go back and ‘look at it again’.

As has been said before, to claim that mass immigration of unskilled doesn’t affect those at the bottom end you have to pretend that market forces for some reason don’t apply to it despite it applying to everything else.

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Problem is with a lot of studies though is a conclusion is derived first and then the evidence is found to support it.

Can you point to the main studies in this area and identify where that was the actual approach?

If you're a company who's being paid a lot of money to analyse a Government scheme by the Government there tends to be a pressure to 'give them what they want to hear' rather than be honest.

As I've said before, read and see what is available (and backed by whom) before jumping to conclusions. It is really amazing how many people are just jumping to assumptions when after about 10 min of research they'd see it is patently not the case that the research is this narrow.

 

[Danthus]

So all the anecdotal evidence from the length and breadth of the country is all wrong?

 

[HaX]

I am suggesting nothing - the facts are right there, a few clicks away. Have a look.

They aren't really conclusive facts though are they? No more so than the examples which have been explained earlier in this thread. They are an analysis of statistics, which I might add don't tally up with what I see going on around me, or indeed free market economics.

Furthermore, they are produced by academics, many of whom seem oblivious to the true impact of immigration. See this excerpt from Question Time for instance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QYCTDXq56w

Admittedly it can be argued that immigration helps to support growth in the economy, though a job will not be created on a 1:1 basis for each immigrant arriving into this country.

Our economy can only support a finite number of jobs. To suggest that adding to what is already a slackly utilised workforce will not reduce wages or result in higher unemployment is ludicrous!

If you were an employer who saw hundreds of suitably qualified and experienced individuals desperately applying for each job you advertised, would you not feel confident in offering lower wages, knowing that there would be a percentage of candidates who'd happily to accept this?