The UK and India have finally inked a trade deal. This is, in principle, a good thing. Free trade can generate wealth, raise wages, and widen the skills market available to the signatories’ respective economies. As well as winners, however, free trade also creates losers.
An obvious loser from this deal is the British worker. Fresh from having his employer’s national insurance contributions (NICs) hiked, and perhaps out of a job as a result, he will now have to compete in the labour market with Indians who will be exempted from personal and employer NICs for three years. If Candidate A, a UK national, and Candidate B, an Indian migrant, go for the same job, with the same skills, same qualifications, and same length of experience, it will be cheaper to hire Candidate B. Purely because they are Indian rather than British.
The same government that is telling the long-term economically inactive to get off their backsides and go find work is making it more expensive for employers to hire them.
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