BoE confirms what we knew already: migration driving down wages

[Stretch]

By reading the posts, it doesn't seem like all employment sectors have been affected by this.



A very important point. Most tradesman reach their peak for skill and speed around 30 years old, just around the time you have kids and a mortgage. A Lithuanian tradesman with equal skills can rent a room from some slum landlord, send all the money home and still undercut you by £50 a day.

Perhaps when this starts to penetrate into office work OCUK will understand.

Rubbish. "Office" workers have been affected by foreign labour for years, especially in IT. Walk into any software house and you'll find people from across the globe, and that's before you consider outsourcing. Romania especially has based a significant part of its economy (tax breaks, people who work in IT pay virtually no tax in Romania), on getting firms to outsource there. Now they are part of the EU, most of them with half a brain get jobs in the UK because the wages are better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_of_Romania#Information_technology

People generally don't moan about it because they know that these people are a valuable asset to the company they work for, and the success of the company depends on finding good people.

People who work doing unskilled or semi skilled work complain because frankly they lack the foresight to know better, and they are easily led by people like UKIP.

 

[Chris344]

Cannot comment.

 

[Amp34]

If you have a group of four lads all sharing a house and the bills they can afford to work for less.

It isn't rocket science as to why wages have been suppressed.

You know that's how most young professionals live in London right? There is nothing wrong with living in a shared house with a group of similar people, it helps reduce the cost and makes things affordable. This idea that everyone needs their own house is one of the problems in this country and one of the things I don't get with social housing. Young people that work have to share a house, yet if you don't work then you may very we'll be able to get your own flat/house in the centre of a city.

The whole idea of suppression of wages makes sense though, it's why so many young professionals lave the UK after graduating. You get more money elsewhere because there is more demand.

 

[Raggs]

In my summer holidays in 1997, I remember getting around £10 an hour for a night shift at a factory doing stacking, sweeping up etc on a 12 hour shift. The day rate was significantly lower. Recently, I saw a similar job being advertised that paid the same for day and night shift: minimum wage. The "incentive" to work night shift was that full-time hours might be available, but if you worked days then only part-time hours would be on offer.

Similar experience here i did a 3 month temp laboring job in 2004 pay was £7 an hour, now 11 years on similar jobs are being advertised around where i live for
£6.50 - £6.75 an hour no increase in the rate of pay even though a decade has passed an actual decrease has happened

 

[Blackjack Davy]

adam smith would disagree about capitalism working as intended anyway


This forums attitude says your friend is a disgrace for letting someone who can't even speak english do the job for a lot less monies.

The audacity leaves me speechless tbh, how dare your friend value himself as being above minimum wage? starving children in Ethiopia would give their left leg to earn such a vast amount of money.

has your friend no shame?

Personally I wonder if forum folk would be quite so blase if it was their own middle management, office jobs that were threatened rather than blue collar and unskilled labour.

"Hey you can clear your desk, we don't need you anymore because we've folk from eastern europe who'll do your job for half the wage!"

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Personally I wonder if forum folk would be quite so blase if it was their own middle management, office jobs that were threatened rather than blue collar and unskilled labour.

"Hey you can clear your desk, we don't need you anymore because we've folk from eastern europe who'll do your job for half the wage!"

Its been happening for years. but they are not based in the UK, they are offshored to either India or Eastern Europe.
Sometimes a few staff are kept to sort of act as liason but otherwise lots of jobs are already done elsewhere that were historically done in the UK.

 

[joeyjojo]

Similar experience here i did a 3 month temp laboring job in 2004 pay was £7 an hour, now 11 years on similar jobs are being advertised around where i live for
£6.50 - £6.75 an hour no increase in the rate of pay even though a decade has passed an actual decrease has happened

You're only comparing one job to a few others, which might not be representative. Also wages fell by several % during the crash and growth and productivity have been low since, so we shouldn't be surprised if wages have stayed low. Some of it might be due to the local labour market but not all.

More of a problem is real wages have been shrinking since the middle of 2008.

http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/6994/economics/uk-wage-growth/

 

[subbytna]

Another 318,000 people came to the UK last year. We are an island. We need to have stricter entry requirements. Time to ditch the EU and take control of our borders. If I didn't know better I'd have guessed that number, 318k, was over a few years. It's over one year. wow.

 

[ubersonic]

Another 318,000 people came to the UK last year. We are an island. We need to have stricter entry requirements. Time to ditch the EU and take control of our borders. If I didn't know better I'd have guessed that number, 318k, was over a few years. It's over one year. wow.

You do understand that only around 1/3 of those came from the EU right, the rest were from non-EU countries with which we do have border controls.

Add to that some of the EU ones are actually students who live here for a few years paying their way and contributing to our economy before leaving.

 

[arknor]

weren't the rich complaining about these rich foreign students from well off Russian etc families because the cost of schools and unis were going up and in some cases prices them out of the education they would have liked for their child.

Just because someone pays their way doesn't mean it benefits the people who live here.

sure it helps the gov in a lot if not most cases but it's the people who suffer from the impacts of immigration.

Now it's finally started to have an effect on the upper and middle echelons of society we might start to slowly see an attitude shift from the people in power once it starts to impact their friends.

yea we should all be expected to share houses with 4+ other people because thats what the eastern romanians and polish are doing.

never mind the quality of life just went down because of this, no doubt they can afford to pay a nice premium rent between them too further pushing up the cost of living

What next victorian work houses and instead of hostels for back packers we could have them for regular workers who can't afford any better.


Terrible situation for the next generation of brits.

expensive uni costs ,poor wages, no guaranteed hours, nevermind owning your own house one day they will be lucky if they aren't sharing one with 4 other people and no doubt the retirement age will be a lot higher than it is now

 

[Supercow]

The UK should implement an Australian based points scheme, based on need and points.

Highly skilled must prove they are just that, and the low skilled should be granted visas, based on the projected needs / demand in certian areas. (similar to state sponsorship in other words)

If it means the UK needs to pull out of the EU, then so be it.

Simples.

 

[Zethor]

The UK should implement an Australian based points scheme, based on need and points.

Highly skilled must prove they are just that, and the low skilled should be granted visas, based on the projected needs / demand in certian areas. (similar to state sponsorship in other words)

If it means the UK needs to pull out of the EU, then so be it.

Simples.

How about using your head? More than half of all immigrants come from India, Pakistan, Nigeria etc. If Britain leaves the EU, there will be much fewer immigrants coming from the EU, which means the amount of Indians, Pakistani or Nigerians would increase (the economy needs some immigrants, whether you like it or not).

Pulling out of the EU means immigrants with less qualifications, less education and with more cultural differences compared to British citizens.

Being against immigration in general and against low skilled immigration in particular but at the same time being for an EU exit is a contradiction that fits perfectly into the definition of insanity.

Simples.

 

[Supercow]

Read what I said first, before you respond.

It's not a long post, but I'll make it easy for you ... read the bit about the need and points system. Everyone will be treated in the same way, no matter where you’re from.

You will need to prove your abilities (skilled or unskilled), English proficiency, medical and finally be cleared of a criminal background.

So whether you're from the EU, Africa, India or wherever, you're still vetted. I didn't say we don't need immigrants (psssst: I'm an immigrant by the way... and in the process of Emigrating again), I said it should be a smarter system than the one in place now.

 

[Amp34]

No, what you had was what we now call HMOs: house of multiple occupation. AKA, a shared house. I spent several years on one a little later than that, in the Eighties. They are now a lot rarer for locals. Lodging was still (just) a thing in the Seventies as well. Right up until the Nineties most young people assumed that they would live with the parents until they had met a person to share their life - and a house - with.

in london it's not uncommon now. Unless you're sharing with your other half (quite possibly I a 2-3 bed sharing with another couple of couples) most young professionals under 30 will be living in shared accommodation. Usually in pretty grim accommodation with 6-7 in a house.

 

[Judgeneo]

318K net migration
~190K natural population increase

118K new homes

We're not building fast enough to support the increase in population at all.

 

[Danthus]

318K net migration
~190K natural population increase

118K new homes

We're not building fast enough to support the increase in population at all.

But immigration is good!

 

[Zethor]

Read what I said first, before you respond.

It's not a long post, but I'll make it easy for you ... read the bit about the need and points system. Everyone will be treated in the same way, no matter where you’re from.

You will need to prove your abilities (skilled or unskilled), English proficiency, medical and finally be cleared of a criminal background.

So whether you're from the EU, Africa, India or wherever, you're still vetted. I didn't say we don't need immigrants (psssst: I'm an immigrant by the way... and in the process of Emigrating again), I said it should be a smarter system than the one in place now.

There already is a Visa sistem in place for non-EU immigrants and it includes various forms of restrictions and checks not too different than the one used in Australia, in example. Despite this and despite the fact that EU immigratnts are free to travel and work as they wish, non-EU immigrants are less educated and have fewer qualifications than their EU counterparts. Now take a logical step forward and imagine what would happen if the UK imposes restrictions to the first type of immigrants. Or let me do it for you: their numbers will decrease. And the next conclusion: the percentage of the non-EU less educated, less qualified immigrants would increase.

You are against low skilled immigration but your suggestion would increase it.

 

[Judgeneo]

But immigration is good!

There is nothing wrong with immigration itself, but it does need to be planned for and controlled. We have consistently failed to do either in the UK.

 

[Dave M]

There is nothing wrong with immigration itself, but it does need to be planned for and controlled. We have consistently failed to do either in the UK.

The previous labour government messed up by allowing the accession countries free access to our labour markets immediately in 2004. This was the single largest enlargement of the EU ever and only a couple of countries were open to their workers. Madness.

The recent enlargement of the EU to include Romania and Bulgaria was managed, we held controls as long as most other large economies which a) gave time for Romania and Bulgaria to catch up and b) spread migrants over a greater range when they did come.

If it wasn't for the lefty soft hearted ideals of Labour we wouldn't have the immigration debate or parties like UKIP right now.

 

[Supercow]

You are against low skilled immigration but your suggestion would increase it.

Nope, I said they need to be quota'd an let in by demand + go through the same vetting process.