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This is a very interesting article. It shows both the benefits and the downside of this type of policy. > He tried recruiting workers from small villages, with

This is a very interesting article. It shows both the benefits and the downside of this type of policy. > He tried recruiting workers from small villages, with scant success. So last year, he began to recruit deaf employees. He refitted his machines with blinking lights and retrained managers to work with deaf people. Mr. Katona has streamlined operations to improve efficiency, including adding more robotic machines. In a counterfactual situation where immigration continued, it seems like these Deaf people wouldn’t have been able to get jobs. On the other hand, the immigrants who couldn’t come are just as human and now lose the opportunity for the jobs. It makes it feel like a zero-sum situation, although I know that according to economic theory freedom including the freedom to migrate would allow greater efficiency and wealth for all.

benj111 8y ago
"allow greater efficiency and wealth for all." As far as I'm aware, migration increases wealth, I don't think its necessarily distributed evenly. That's where govt policy's should be stepping in.
dmortin 8y ago
> the immigrants who couldn’t come are just as human and now lose the opportunity for the jobs. Actually, Hungarian companies do bring immigrant workers form Ukraine, etc. despite what Orban preaches, but apparently it's not enough.
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  Cultural differences aside, neighbouring Ukraine has 4.5x the population with almost half the wages (adjusted for CoL/PPP). Hungary should be a slam dunk, no?
  - 29083011397778 8y ago
    The Ukrainian workers are more likely to go to Poland, due to better wages and friendlier immigration policies, according to the article
    - chewz 8y ago
      Also due to similarity of languages. After short time Ukrainians can speak Polish well enough to communicate with just a bit of Eastern accent.
  - dmortin 8y ago
    Maybe language is a problem, because Hungarian is pretty difficult to learn for foreigners, so I guess migrant workers can only be employed for simple jobs where language is not an issuse. I heard about foreign construction workers where the company added translators to the crew, so the construction manager can talk to the workers via the translator. I don't know how efficient this is in practice.
    - Scoundreller 8y ago
      That’s incredibly common in Canada. People can work an entire career in construction or industrially, and pick up very little English or French.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
"although I know that according to economic theory freedom including the freedom to migrate would allow greater efficiency and wealth for all" More likely it just pits the most vulnerable against each other in a race to the bottom, and gives those with power in the system even greater power. The argument from 'economic freedom' or 'liberal democrat' types is that the system would be more efficient overall, which might be true - but it's not very good at the 'distribution of surpluses' problem. We have plenty of productivity in the world, the struggle is how to get it spread around fairly. The answer to the 'economic desperation migration' problem mostly has to do with solving the host of problems from whence these people have come. Surely there will always be calamity causing a bump in migration, just as surely as regular migration will go on (regular ex-pats changing jobs, getting married to someone from another country etc.) ... but the 'greatest good' will definitely surround getting dysfunctional places to be somewhat more functional. Also, once countries reach ballpark parity with one another, the rate of migration normalizes quite a lot, to numbers that nobody is going to be bothered about and there'll be nothing to get all populist about. But the law itself is ridiculous ... for a so-called populist government ... this must be one of the most utterly 'un-populist' concepts imaginable. This would be political suicide in any country, any regime, and flag, any political stripe. Truly what were they thinking? Edit: for some numbers: Italy has over 5 million foreign nationals residing there (8.3% of the population), the largest group among them are Romanians. Italy has also received 700 000 irregular migrants (only those that are counted) from the Med. [1] They have an unemployment rate of 11%. Spain has also about 5 million for a total of 10% [2] of the population and a whopping 20% unemployment rate. When unemployment rates are high and the economy is unable to absorb newcomers, supply and demand dictates that labour market will be favourable to employers, ie downward pressure on wages, with the surpluses going either to consumers, or the company/investors. Aside from some possibly lower prices for people in the middle and upper classes, and better returns in their portfolios (!), a reasonable economic argument for all of this can't be made 'in the name of freedom'. [1] https://www.thelocal.it/20180612/immigration-to-italy-numbers https://www.thelocal.it/20180612/immigration-to-italy-number... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Spain
deogeo 8y ago
> On the other hand, the immigrants who couldn’t come are just as human and now lose the opportunity for the jobs. The duty of a country is to its own people first.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  That belief leads to some really ugly conclusions really quickly. I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong, just that it needs a very long list of caveats if you don't want your country to become a cautionary tale.
  - deogeo 8y ago
    It is a belief that must be tempered with compassion to other countries and peoples, yes. I don't see what ugly conclusions it leads to, however - looking out for one's own family members first doesn't mean you hate your neighbors. A country is the same, just scaled up. But consider the opposite, a country that does not distinguish between its citizens and others. Can you call such a country 'yours', when it makes you compete with the world instead of protecting you from it? A friend to all is a friend to none.
jdietrich 8y ago
Next paragraph: >“They have been great,” he said of the newly hired workers. Still, he said, he lost about 1 million euros, about $1.1 million, in sales last year because he could not fill orders, most of them destined for export. Multiply that across the whole economy and you're leaving a frightening amount of economic growth and tax revenue on the table. Providing subsidies and other support to encourage employers to hire disabled workers is unequivocally sensible; strangling the labour supply with ideologically-motivated controls on immigration is very much a mixed bag.
- astazangasta 8y ago
  I mean, horseshit. This guy says he would have made $1.1 million in sales. You know, I would have made $1.1 billion in sales. Start crying for all of that frightening lost economic growth! This is the standard claptrap we always here when there is a tight labor market and rising wages. Oh no, capitalists have to compete for workers! They might have to give them higher wages and better benefits in order to retain them! They might have to have an actually productive, profitable business to stay afloat. Oh noooo!
Mikeb85 8y ago
> It makes it feel like a zero-sum situation, although I know that according to economic theory freedom including the freedom to migrate would allow greater efficiency and wealth for all. It should but in reality it doesn't. Corruption and crime in developing countries makes them less attractive to investment and migration, so migration only goes in 1 direction. Developing countries lose skilled workers and in western countries real wages go down. For freedom to migrate to actually create greater efficiency, there would need to be no barriers to migrating to lower-cost areas (developing world), that way workers and small-business owners (and not just massive multinationals) could take advantage of lower costs in other countries. Right now the situation is far from ideal, hence why you see anti-immigration movements in every western country.
- skybrian 8y ago
  Migration greatly helps the people who migrate, more than other forms of foreign aid. It also helps their relatives back home due to remittances. It also increases demand for services in the country they move to (not just supply of workers). More people means more customers. There are certainly places with the problems that come from over-crowding, but places that lose population tend not to be doing too well economically. The question is whether and how to take all this into account in your cost-benefit calculation. It doesn't seem at all obvious to me, without actually doing the math. And certainly you can't trust the judgement of random people who don't know much about what's going on outside of their everyday lives (which is most of us). Conclusion: this stuff is complicated. Simple answers aren't to be trusted.
  - Mikeb85 8y ago
    > Migration greatly helps the people who migrate, more than other forms of foreign aid. It also helps their relatives back home due to remittances. It helps the people who migrate and their families, at the cost of the development of the nation they're leaving behind who lose skilled workers, and it also hurts those left behind in the country that aren't receiving remittances as the influx of foreign cash raises costs and prices. > More people means more customers. And more workers (putting downward pressure on wages). More customers offsets that slightly by increasing demand for products, but between the effects of increasing labour supply and cash leaving the country (those remittances you brought up), is it a net positive for both sides? There are losers, where's the equilibrium? > The question is whether and how to take all this into account in your cost-benefit calculation. It doesn't seem at all obvious to me, without actually doing the math Of course you take everything into account when doing the maths. The problem is that those who make decisions are swayed by corporations and lobbyists, so they optimise for what's best for corporations, not necessarily citizens. > Conclusion: this stuff is complicated. Very. I studied it in university, it doesn't get simpler the deeper you go. And the answer of 'migration is always positive' is a simple answer, and doesn't take into account the winners and losers.

benj111 8y ago

"allow greater efficiency and wealth for all." As far as I'm aware, migration increases wealth, I don't think its necessarily distributed evenly. That's where govt policy's should be stepping in.

dmortin 8y ago

> the immigrants who couldn’t come are just as human and now lose the opportunity for the jobs. Actually, Hungarian companies do bring immigrant workers form Ukraine, etc. despite what Orban preaches, but apparently it's not enough.

Scoundreller 8y ago
Cultural differences aside, neighbouring Ukraine has 4.5x the population with almost half the wages (adjusted for CoL/PPP). Hungary should be a slam dunk, no?
- 29083011397778 8y ago
  The Ukrainian workers are more likely to go to Poland, due to better wages and friendlier immigration policies, according to the article
  - chewz 8y ago
    Also due to similarity of languages. After short time Ukrainians can speak Polish well enough to communicate with just a bit of Eastern accent.
- dmortin 8y ago
  Maybe language is a problem, because Hungarian is pretty difficult to learn for foreigners, so I guess migrant workers can only be employed for simple jobs where language is not an issuse. I heard about foreign construction workers where the company added translators to the crew, so the construction manager can talk to the workers via the translator. I don't know how efficient this is in practice.
  - Scoundreller 8y ago
    That’s incredibly common in Canada. People can work an entire career in construction or industrially, and pick up very little English or French.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

"although I know that according to economic theory freedom including the freedom to migrate would allow greater efficiency and wealth for all" More likely it just pits the most vulnerable against each other in a race to the bottom, and gives those with power in the system even greater power. The argument from 'economic freedom' or 'liberal democrat' types is that the system would be more efficient overall, which might be true - but it's not very good at the 'distribution of surpluses' problem. We have plenty of productivity in the world, the struggle is how to get it spread around fairly. The answer to the 'economic desperation migration' problem mostly has to do with solving the host of problems from whence these people have come. Surely there will always be calamity causing a bump in migration, just as surely as regular migration will go on (regular ex-pats changing jobs, getting married to someone from another country etc.) ... but the 'greatest good' will definitely surround getting dysfunctional places to be somewhat more functional. Also, once countries reach ballpark parity with one another, the rate of migration normalizes quite a lot, to numbers that nobody is going to be bothered about and there'll be nothing to get all populist about. But the law itself is ridiculous ... for a so-called populist government ... this must be one of the most utterly 'un-populist' concepts imaginable. This would be political suicide in any country, any regime, and flag, any political stripe. Truly what were they thinking? Edit: for some numbers: Italy has over 5 million foreign nationals residing there (8.3% of the population), the largest group among them are Romanians. Italy has also received 700 000 irregular migrants (only those that are counted) from the Med. [1] They have an unemployment rate of 11%. Spain has also about 5 million for a total of 10% [2] of the population and a whopping 20% unemployment rate. When unemployment rates are high and the economy is unable to absorb newcomers, supply and demand dictates that labour market will be favourable to employers, ie downward pressure on wages, with the surpluses going either to consumers, or the company/investors. Aside from some possibly lower prices for people in the middle and upper classes, and better returns in their portfolios (!), a reasonable economic argument for all of this can't be made 'in the name of freedom'. [1] https://www.thelocal.it/20180612/immigration-to-italy-numbers https://www.thelocal.it/20180612/immigration-to-italy-number... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Spain

deogeo 8y ago

> On the other hand, the immigrants who couldn’t come are just as human and now lose the opportunity for the jobs. The duty of a country is to its own people first.

jdietrich 8y ago
That belief leads to some really ugly conclusions really quickly. I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong, just that it needs a very long list of caveats if you don't want your country to become a cautionary tale.
- deogeo 8y ago
  It is a belief that must be tempered with compassion to other countries and peoples, yes. I don't see what ugly conclusions it leads to, however - looking out for one's own family members first doesn't mean you hate your neighbors. A country is the same, just scaled up. But consider the opposite, a country that does not distinguish between its citizens and others. Can you call such a country 'yours', when it makes you compete with the world instead of protecting you from it? A friend to all is a friend to none.

jdietrich 8y ago

Next paragraph: >“They have been great,” he said of the newly hired workers. Still, he said, he lost about 1 million euros, about $1.1 million, in sales last year because he could not fill orders, most of them destined for export. Multiply that across the whole economy and you're leaving a frightening amount of economic growth and tax revenue on the table. Providing subsidies and other support to encourage employers to hire disabled workers is unequivocally sensible; strangling the labour supply with ideologically-motivated controls on immigration is very much a mixed bag.

astazangasta 8y ago
I mean, horseshit. This guy says he would have made $1.1 million in sales. You know, I would have made $1.1 billion in sales. Start crying for all of that frightening lost economic growth! This is the standard claptrap we always here when there is a tight labor market and rising wages. Oh no, capitalists have to compete for workers! They might have to give them higher wages and better benefits in order to retain them! They might have to have an actually productive, profitable business to stay afloat. Oh noooo!

Mikeb85 8y ago

> It makes it feel like a zero-sum situation, although I know that according to economic theory freedom including the freedom to migrate would allow greater efficiency and wealth for all. It should but in reality it doesn't. Corruption and crime in developing countries makes them less attractive to investment and migration, so migration only goes in 1 direction. Developing countries lose skilled workers and in western countries real wages go down. For freedom to migrate to actually create greater efficiency, there would need to be no barriers to migrating to lower-cost areas (developing world), that way workers and small-business owners (and not just massive multinationals) could take advantage of lower costs in other countries. Right now the situation is far from ideal, hence why you see anti-immigration movements in every western country.

skybrian 8y ago
Migration greatly helps the people who migrate, more than other forms of foreign aid. It also helps their relatives back home due to remittances. It also increases demand for services in the country they move to (not just supply of workers). More people means more customers. There are certainly places with the problems that come from over-crowding, but places that lose population tend not to be doing too well economically. The question is whether and how to take all this into account in your cost-benefit calculation. It doesn't seem at all obvious to me, without actually doing the math. And certainly you can't trust the judgement of random people who don't know much about what's going on outside of their everyday lives (which is most of us). Conclusion: this stuff is complicated. Simple answers aren't to be trusted.
- Mikeb85 8y ago
  > Migration greatly helps the people who migrate, more than other forms of foreign aid. It also helps their relatives back home due to remittances. It helps the people who migrate and their families, at the cost of the development of the nation they're leaving behind who lose skilled workers, and it also hurts those left behind in the country that aren't receiving remittances as the influx of foreign cash raises costs and prices. > More people means more customers. And more workers (putting downward pressure on wages). More customers offsets that slightly by increasing demand for products, but between the effects of increasing labour supply and cash leaving the country (those remittances you brought up), is it a net positive for both sides? There are losers, where's the equilibrium? > The question is whether and how to take all this into account in your cost-benefit calculation. It doesn't seem at all obvious to me, without actually doing the math Of course you take everything into account when doing the maths. The problem is that those who make decisions are swayed by corporations and lobbyists, so they optimise for what's best for corporations, not necessarily citizens. > Conclusion: this stuff is complicated. Very. I studied it in university, it doesn't get simpler the deeper you go. And the answer of 'migration is always positive' is a simple answer, and doesn't take into account the winners and losers.