Where British jobs are going
Fraser Nelson 2:16pm
Just as you thought the British Jobs for British Workers imbroglio has died down, the ONS issues an update to its migrant v native workers figures and it shows just who the recession is hurting. In the last three months of last year there were 278,000 fewer British-born people in work. Over the same period there were 214,000 more immigrants in work. So, in net terms the recession is only hurting native workers: the appetite for immigrant labour seems undimmed.
PS This data is normally only available on request. Normally, a nerd like me makes a data request and the kind souls at the ONS cook it up. But even then, you never see the full picture as you are only told what you ask. The ONS has also published supplementary tables which offer the most detailed study into the relationship between immigration and employment. From what I've seen so far, it includes pensioners. Immigration has had its most dramatic effect amongst the working-age group where almost all new jobs will, I suspect, soon be accounted for by immigration.
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James J
February 11th, 2009 3:11pm Report this commentWhom God wishes to destroy He first...
Hawkeye
February 11th, 2009 3:31pm Report this commentSarkozy seemed to get away with a french version of BJ4BW - I suppose it would be Francais des emplois pour les travailleurs francais - and he did not seem to upset the French. He annoyed the Czechs however....
The first duty of a government is the protection and care of its own citizens. Its time the immigration conveyor belt was switched off. I know we cannot keep the EU ones out, but the rest of the world shares no such privilege.
Combine this with a stepped up programme to deport illegals back to their home country and ensure that those on expiring visas are sent back as well.
It is not protectionism, it is merely running the existing system as it is meant to be run. What a pity that the current ham-fisted bunch of spineless incompetents that pass for a government do not seem to understand their own responsibilities to the citizens of the UK.
littledragon
February 11th, 2009 6:01pm Report this commentI think soon we'll have to start checking our MP's for knives, due to their ever increasing thirst for backstabbing the natives.
Is our government waging war on its people?
Alf Tupper
February 11th, 2009 7:37pm Report this commentAnd this is not a glitch, merely the upturn of a well established trend. Brown presides over it for the moment and Cameron has recently stated clearly that the notion of giving British jobs to natives is wrong minded.
Looks like the pair of them are forcing the people to look - ahem - elsewhere.
Are the dangers of 'protectionism' to be more feared than this Fraser?
Death or Tory
February 11th, 2009 7:46pm Report this comment"PS This data is normally only available on request [etc.]..."
And yet the ONS chooses NOW to issue it as a matter of course and in addition "The ONS has also published supplementary tables which offer the most detailed study into the relationship between immigration and employment."
Now, why might that be?
If I were a cynic, I might suspect that it was being done deliberately to stir-up further unrest among existing and potential demonstrators on the picket lines and to engineer a violent confrontation with the police - moral high ground ceded to the Government over these nasty violent and xenophobic demonstrators.
Only if I were a cynic, though...
Richard Calhoun
February 11th, 2009 8:49pm Report this commentIt is a side issue, what we need is for a Leader to explain to the British Electorat that there is only one way out of this financial holocaust.
Hard work.
But first the Government must reduce public spending and re-cast the benenfits and tax system to make it worthwhile people working.
I don't often agree with Ed Balls,but if he is saying that the whole political dynamic is going to change then he is dead right.
When in the financial mess that we are in with revenues dropping you cut expenditure.
Unless we have a leader prepared to spell this out and enact it we will experience the economy shrinking / stagnating for many, many years.
James J
February 11th, 2009 9:27pm Report this commentEven ignoring the Social costs, taxpayers subsidise the low wages employers are able to pay either with Housing Benefits etc for immigrants or welfare payments for workers they displace. Cheap Labour is not always cheap. And that is without considering the unemployed and unemployable immigrants coming through our open borders.
Callie
February 11th, 2009 9:59pm Report this commentHow can anyone support this? What is happening to British people in their own country is absolutely disgusting.
James J
February 11th, 2009 10:06pm Report this commentDeath or Tory
Only if Blackadder’s friend Baldrick is heading up Labour’s strategy department.
Verity
February 11th, 2009 10:50pm Report this commentHawkeye writes: "What a pity that the current ham-fisted bunch of spineless incompetents that pass for a government do not seem to understand their own responsibilities to the citizens of the UK."
Surely you jest!
Do you sincerely not understand that all this is deliberate? A plan that was set in motion 12 years ago to destroy the United Kingdom and rob the indigenes of their identity?
Little Dragon - Good heavens yes! Have you only just noticed?
Carol-Ann
February 11th, 2009 10:59pm Report this commentFraser, the tough welfare reform you so passionately advocate cannot be a one way street. It's doomed to failure unless the other side, which you have never acknowledged, is also put in place. Which is to not only force people into work but also force businesses to employ them and not immigrants.
Death or Tory
February 12th, 2009 8:51am Report this comment@ James J
That would be it, then - I assume he must find it more interesting than fronting 'Time Team'...
AngloWelshDragon
February 12th, 2009 9:34am Report this comment@ Carol-Ann
@ Verity
Agree entirely with both of you. The indigenous working classes (and I include all but the migrants of the last 10-15 years in that) are between a rock and a hard place.
During the boom years we had immigrants doing jobs the indolent underlcass didn't want to get off their backsides to do. Now we face a situation where hard working men and women who don't want to be on welfare are losing their jobs but are unable to find new ones because empolyers would rather employee immigrants.
If this isn't a recipe for social unrest, I don't know what is.
David
February 12th, 2009 3:26pm Report this commentRichard Calhoun,
"When in the financial mess that we are in with revenues dropping you cut expenditure."
Surely that is how you reduce demand even further?
Monetarism deepened the 80s recession and Laissez-Faire deepened the US depression.
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