Immigration & Unemployment: Debunking the Myths

 

‘Migration IS killing off jobs’

‘160,000 Brits lose jobs to migrants’

‘MASS IMMIGRATION HAS CHANGED OUR COUNTRY FOR EVER’

Headlines like these appear in the tabloid newspapers about immigration and employment every other week. The problem with these headlines is they’re shot through with lies intended to boost newspaper sales by feeding off our anxieties and insecurities over work, housing, identity, etc. 

These lies are also intended to divert attention away from the actual causes of unemployment.

Contrary to what the Government and tabloids will generally have you believe, immigration has almost no effect on what’s called “‘native’s’ unemployment” (sic).

“The gap between economic analysis and public belief on the labour market impact of

immigration is particularly large.”

[Source: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/162425722235]

This is a problem. If we haven’t got time to research the facts on immigration and only rely on right-wing tabloid hacks, we forego a proper analysis of the impact of immigration on employment and housing. 

Fact is: it’s negligible.

A comprehensive 2007 OECD study could not find:

“…any permanent effect of immigration, measured as the share of immigrants in the labour force, upon natives unemployment.”

And in a 2008 study entitled Migration Myths:

“The international evidence records no real experience of migrants either ‘stealing our jobs’ or ‘forcing down our wages’”.

And:

“The evidence is clear: there is no relationship between concentrations of WRS [Worker Registration Scheme] registrations and any increase in the claimant count.” 

Immigration and Housing

In terms of the overall proportion of new lettings, out of 170,000 new council or housing association tenants in 2006/07 in England fewer than 5% went to foreign nationals and under 1% went to east Europeans.

Asylum Seekers

"The UK receives fewer asylum applications than France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Belgium. As of January 2012, the UN estimated that the number of refugees, pending asylum cases and stateless persons made up just 0.33 per cent of the population."

United Nations

Scare stories about a new influx of migrants from Eastern Europe only serve to divide the working class, whatever their locality is. It’s time we ‘fessed up on the blame game and realized it’s the rich bosses who are the problem, not the migratory working class, displaced by capitalist conditions, looking for a better life.  

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