UK needs more immigrants to 'avoid Brexit catastrophe'

The British economy needs a net inward migration flow of 200,000 people a year, double the Conservative target, if it is to avoid the “catastrophic economic consequences” linked to Brexit, a study by an employer-backed thinktank has said.

The Global Future report says the UK’s low productivity, ageing population and shortage of labour in key areas, such as the NHS, show that net migration of 200,000 will be needed annually.

The report, backed by three employer groups, criticises Labour and the Conservatives for refusing to be honest with the British public about the level of migration the UK requires. It warns that if the UK refuses to be flexible about its sources of labour, it could face a decade of slow growth similar to that of the Japanese economy.

The Conservatives recommitted themselves to a target of limiting net migration to tens of thousands in their manifesto on Thursday, promising to double the cost to an employer of hiring a skilled worker from overseas.

The net migration target recommended by Global Future is broadly in line with actual levels from 2000 onwards.

The report says that even with a later retirement age, Britain faces a demographic time bomb, and needs migration of 130,000 a year to maintain the working population at its current level.

“The dependency ratio – the number of people of working age (16-64) versus those over 65 – is worsening. Between 1950 and 2015 this fell from 5.5 to 3.5. Only the recent increase in net migration has prevented it from falling even more precipitously,” it says.

theguardian.com/uk-news/201 … atastrophe

Tory promise to cut immigration numbers down is politics as usual, nothing is going to change post GE.

Productivity is classed as GDP per hour worked. How on earth is importing Eastern European slave labour going to help that statistic? How about tackling our low productivity instead of importing low and none skilled labour? But then what’s the point of small businesses improving productivity and generating more profits in the UK? Corporation Tax rates may be falling, but for an SME owner the effective tax rate on earnings by adding up National Insurance, PAYE, Corporation Tax and Dividend Tax is heading towards 50%. The days of paying 20% Corporation Tax and then withdrawing dividends have gone, it’s not worth it. They really have killed the goose that lays the golden egg.

The figures in this piece extol the serious problem we have in this country with population numbers:-

uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aa … 8bb9ad.jpg

Given the number of jobs being/forecast to be lost through technology why import labour at all? All this we need them to pay the tax is no good if there are no jobs to earn wages to pay the tax

It’s a catastrophe I can live with. I’ll just have to wash my own car, and burn my rubbish rather than leave a dustbin out.

No, big business needs it to avoid the catastrophe of paying a high wage due to the demand outstripping the supply, like pre 2004

Just to provide some balance.So you’re saying that young East Euro workers don’t have an older generation of their own at home to support ?. :unamused:

express.co.uk/comment/expres … -migration

Also bearing in mind that if free movement of labour is so good then we’d obviously have free movement with the rest of the English speaking world like Oz and NZ and Canada.While if we really had a problem of not enough replacement of older people with younger people then we obviously wouldn’t be calling on young women to go to university instead of being housewives and having children and we’d obviously have enough jobs and sufficient wages for fathers to support a family.Nor would we have social provision collapsing under the burden of an artificial ever increasing immigrant population against a back ground of tax revenues and economic growth collapsing because of wage stagnation.

While it’s obvious that the CBI agenda is all about opportunist short term profit by the minimising wage levels in the form of flooding the labour market with a low wage expectation immigrant workforce.

But great hopefully they’ll keep up their propaganda which can only help in us getting the hung parliament we need with UKIP holding the balance.‘If’ we can even trust UKIP to not just be Tories in disguise that is.Doubtful. :frowning:

If there is a job vacancy, and you fill it with someone who’s only just arrived - then that’s one job less for the local talent.
If there is no job vacancy, and you let another 250,000 immigrants in anyways - that’s 250,000 more benefit claimants for local government to pay out for, and a much diluted public services pot to boot.

No one is talking about “kicking out an immigrant already here and already working and already paying PAYE taxes”.

Why is that?

Even UKIP are not talking about “only kicking out the criminal immigrant scumbags” and they’re supposed to be a “far right” party?!

Would someone please explain to me then what this “Brexit Catastrophe” actually is?

Come up with some worse case scenarios…
I’ll start you off…

(1) If we kick out too many, then some job centers and benefit offices might have to close down, costing clerical jobs :open_mouth:

(2) If we don’t take on enough new immigrants, our companies will all fold in protest at having to actually train up some local school lever talent themselves. :unamused:

(3) If we leave things as they are, our Tory government will end up with votes equally divided between UKIP (whilst they still exist) and Conservative - thus letting in a Labour/Rainbow coalition (with no blue in it) by the back door… Perish the thought! :angry:

(4) If we don’t get back into the EU smartish, our millionaire would-be employers will all burn their money, and emigrate rather than actually integrate some local new arrivals in personally.
Last time I heard, Millionaires employing Immigrant talent directly - only do it if they want “off book” work out of them. So much for free and fair employment laws!

Alternatively, we can all say “■■■■■■■■ too all Remoaner arguments further. Let’s see what the house of commons looks like with over half the opposition benches being sat upon by bluesters.” :smiling_imp:

I’ll be voting Tory for only the second time in my life next month, by the looks of it. Fingers crossed there won’t be any backsliding by May.
With a bit of luck, the Libdems and SNP will get wiped out, and we’ll have a proper opposition party too, bereft of the front bench clowns currently running the show.
Let’s hope Labour don’t become so weak though, that someone like McCluskey gets his foot in the door, and takes over the Labour party for his own ends.

Now it’s off to Bully’s Bar, and it’s your round. :stuck_out_tongue:

Well DOLPH, your post makes some sense, but Teresa has promised to reduce the numbers to 100.000 per year, so at least well be closer to the target. :smiley: The problem was this EU club, for when it started to stagnate, the Germans were all in favour of finding new markets, so though it better to invite all the eastern bloc into the club, hoping to coin it ` but it all backfired, cos as with their usual rules and regulations, they never think it out, even our dear old government never knew how many Poles would arrive across the border, or thought whether most of them would head for blighty…once the word spread ( with thanks to the eu allowing it 0 they told their friends of the Family tax credit, Child allowance, NHS etc etc would have to be given to them, child benefit was a months wage to them back home, no wonder they rubbed their hands with glee, some sent a lot of money home, and some opened businesses for their wives to run…good eh. Anyway All of the farms in this country were employing cheap english labour, school leavers with no qualifications, students, gap year students etc, and the pub trade welcomed them too…BUT once the Poles arrived, they were used as even more cheaper labour, with accommodation thrown in as well ( well an old caravan at least on the farm ) sadly our own people were pushed to the back of the queue, They were taking a driving test on a farm tractor and trailer, and that qualified them for a class 1 44 ton machine, many were wrecked, written off, they caused untold carnage on our roads, because they really didnt have a clue, the steering wheel was on the wrong side for a start, and so were our roads, they wasnt used to driving these huge machines ( after only ever driving a car at home ) so had no idea of using mirrors or road safety in general…once companies got their fingers burnt, they started to get rid of them,m wouldnt employ them, insurance companies wouldnt insure them either ( including ireland ) As things started to die down, more EE countries joined, and we hjad that experience once again, this time from Latvians, Croatians and Lithuanians, all equally as poor as the first lot…but also they were bringing wares fromall over europe with their own vehicles instead, services were choc a bloc with them , they never paid,parked for days on end waiting for a reload, and of course lowered the rates. It wasnt only in the transport sector either, they were offering to work for half the pay of a bricklayer, carpenter, plumber etc, so those trades suffered too english workers were being replaced by foreign ones, not a first, as we also had years earlier those from our colonies who were given british status…as time went on, we had no choice but to accept it…Until Dave came along, and offered a referendum…which we grabbed with both hands…so now we are leaving this club, that started the mess in the first place, but to be replaced by Syrians, Africans, Somalis, Iraqis, Kurds, etc etc…but were offered no help…no one wanted them either, except Germany who told them : come here, we welcome you, until it got too much…then the EU decided all countries had to take a share, most said NO, including us, others, closed their borders, put up new higher fences to keep them out, the africans started arriving from Libya and elsewhere, and landed on the Greek or Italian shores, where they are still arriving, and its only the charities who are helping them survive, whilst their status is checked and if successful, will be given asylum…its not an ideal europe anymore, it needs big changes, and a big meeting of everyone in europe to sort this mess out once and for all, stop the war in syria and afghanistan/iraq, and help build these countries so that we can begin to repatriate them home again, because a club as big as the eu, cannot find a solution, but someone has to take responsibility.

There’s a huge gulf between “needs” and “wants”!

think some seem too forget that we live on a island

Some companies have this mindset that an Eastern European migrant worker has a better work ethic than a UK one and in my experience that’s ■■■■■■■■. Had to endure working with lazy arsed EU workers in my time as well as British ones and I’d say there is no difference in percentages of good and bad. An issue I see is that a lot of companies prefer temp, ad hoc agency workers as much as possible so they can skip on their commitments they would have with actually employing someone themselves.

Companies are on a winner, agencies too, and it’s joe bloggs who gets the crap.

The first line gives the game away.

Dolph:
The British economy needs a net inward migration flow of 200,000 people a year, double the Conservative target, if it is to avoid the “catastrophic economic consequences” linked to Brexit, a study by an employer-backed thinktank has said.

.

Of course an employer backed thinktank wants more cheap labour. They wouldnt want employees to earn a proper living wage would they!

truckyboy:
but Teresa has promised to reduce the numbers to 100.000 per year

Not quite; in 2010 the Tories under Cameron pledged to reduce the numbers to the tens of thousands. In 2015 they promised to do the same. The 2017 manifesto says it is an aim to reduce the numbers from europe to under 100,000 and bear down on immigration from outside the EU. No great surprise from the woman who, whilst she was Home Secretary, presided over the largest influx of immigrants since the second world war.

George Osbourne has said, in his editorial in The Evening Standard that senior cabinet ministers privately do not support Theresa May’s desire to keep the Conservative target of reducing net immigration to the tens of thousands, because it was unachievable and undesirable.

msgyorkie:
Of course an employer backed thinktank wants more cheap labour. They wouldnt want employees to earn a proper living wage would they!

The big question is why are the Labour Party so keen on supporting the single market and with it the free movement of Labour.But total silence regarding the idea of an EU wide living wage which would create the only slightest possibility of making the single market fit for purpose,for the working class they claim to represent.Add that to the SNP being so called Nationalists and LibDems supposedly all for local democracy but both with a liking for EU Federal rule,something seems very strange about the inconsistencies in the whole political system in this country.IE they are all the same thing doing whatever big business wants while pretending to be something else for their respective naive audiences. :bulb:

Stanley Knife:

truckyboy:
but Teresa has promised to reduce the numbers to 100.000 per year

Not quite; in 2010 the Tories under Cameron pledged to reduce the numbers to the tens of thousands. In 2015 they promised to do the same. The 2017 manifesto says it is an aim to reduce the numbers from europe to under 100,000 and bear down on immigration from outside the EU. No great surprise from the woman who, whilst she was Home Secretary, presided over the largest influx of immigrants since the second world war.

George Osbourne has said, in his editorial in The Evening Standard that senior cabinet ministers privately do not support Theresa May’s desire to keep the Conservative target of reducing net immigration to the tens of thousands, because it was unachievable and undesirable.

I’d guess we can trust Davis’ promises,regarding May’s supposed sympathies with hard Brexit,as much as his previous promises that the Cons wouldn’t concrete over the South East,with the developers’ charter of the NPPF being the result.Realistically if the Cons could be trusted they would have been more interested in irrevocably delivering hard Brexit by now having replaced Cameron with supposed Leavers at the top not Remainers.Let alone calling a needless election which just gives more ammunition to the Remainers across all Parties.If the UKIP vote caves in now,rather than going for a hung parliament with UKIP holding the balance,they’ll be total mugs.

Muckaway:
It’s a catastrophe I can live with. I’ll just have to wash my own car, and burn my rubbish rather than leave a dustbin out.

+1

OVLOV JAY:
No, big business needs it to avoid the catastrophe of paying a high wage due to the demand outstripping the supply, like pre 2004

+1

truckyboy:
Well DOLPH, your post makes some sense, but Teresa has promised to reduce the numbers to 100.000 per year, so at least well be closer to the target. :smiley: The problem was this EU club, for when it started to stagnate, the Germans were all in favour of finding new markets, so though it better to invite all the eastern bloc into the club, hoping to coin it ` but it all backfired, cos as with their usual rules and regulations, they never think it out, even our dear old government never knew how many Poles would arrive across the border, or thought whether most of them would head for blighty…once the word spread ( with thanks to the eu allowing it 0 they told their friends of the Family tax credit, Child allowance, NHS etc etc would have to be given to them, child benefit was a months wage to them back home, no wonder they rubbed their hands with glee, some sent a lot of money home, and some opened businesses for their wives to run…good eh. Anyway All of the farms in this country were employing cheap english labour, school leavers with no qualifications, students, gap year students etc, and the pub trade welcomed them too…BUT once the Poles arrived, they were used as even more cheaper labour, with accommodation thrown in as well ( well an old caravan at least on the farm ) sadly our own people were pushed to the back of the queue, They were taking a driving test on a farm tractor and trailer, and that qualified them for a class 1 44 ton machine, many were wrecked, written off, they caused untold carnage on our roads, because they really didnt have a clue, the steering wheel was on the wrong side for a start, and so were our roads, they wasnt used to driving these huge machines ( after only ever driving a car at home ) so had no idea of using mirrors or road safety in general…once companies got their fingers burnt, they started to get rid of them,m wouldnt employ them, insurance companies wouldnt insure them either ( including ireland ) As things started to die down, more EE countries joined, and we hjad that experience once again, this time from Latvians, Croatians and Lithuanians, all equally as poor as the first lot…but also they were bringing wares fromall over europe with their own vehicles instead, services were choc a bloc with them , they never paid,parked for days on end waiting for a reload, and of course lowered the rates. It wasnt only in the transport sector either, they were offering to work for half the pay of a bricklayer, carpenter, plumber etc, so those trades suffered too english workers were being replaced by foreign ones, not a first, as we also had years earlier those from our colonies who were given british status…as time went on, we had no choice but to accept it…Until Dave came along, and offered a referendum…which we grabbed with both hands…so now we are leaving this club, that started the mess in the first place, but to be replaced by Syrians, Africans, Somalis, Iraqis, Kurds, etc etc…but were offered no help…no one wanted them either, except Germany who told them : come here, we welcome you, until it got too much…then the EU decided all countries had to take a share, most said NO, including us, others, closed their borders, put up new higher fences to keep them out, the africans started arriving from Libya and elsewhere, and landed on the Greek or Italian shores, where they are still arriving, and its only the charities who are helping them survive, whilst their status is checked and if successful, will be given asylum…its not an ideal europe anymore, it needs big changes, and a big meeting of everyone in europe to sort this mess out once and for all, stop the war in syria and afghanistan/iraq, and help build these countries so that we can begin to repatriate them home again, because a club as big as the eu, cannot find a solution, but someone has to take responsibility.

this is spot on

I move that there isn’t a catastrophe that connects Brexit with ordinary workers.

With more immigration, it will be easier to compete on the agencies for the plum shifts.
With the same immigration it will BE more of the same.
With less immigration, our wages would rise due to fair-and-square supply and demand.

The argument that a “decline in population” would shrink the economy, and therefore cost jobs - doesn’t hold water, since the first aspects of money in society that would change first - is the benefits bill shrinking.

If employers find it increasingly hard to get staff, because more and more immigrants are going home - then they’ve got the choice of training up newbies, increasing the wages of the incumbents, and encouraging more drivers to continue working beyond traditional retirement age. There’s evidence of the latter happening, but not much of the others outside of the multidrop/handball side of things.