4 ms·

How was the line? Foreigners steal jobs?

riffraff 4y ago
I don't mean to defend xenophobic attitudes against immigration, but labor shortage should lead to higher wages, so the argument against immigration that they depress wages would still hold.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  That doesn't defend xenophobia in any way. Being against immigration in some scenarios does not mean you're xenophobic.
- trashtester 4y ago
  Specifically, labor shortages lead to higher salaries for those groups who no longer have to compete with the type of immigrants that used to come, and only if the demand is limited. But for most other groups, it may lead to a reduction in real salaries, due to price inflation. Fewer carpenters makes housing more expensive, and fewer tech workers can make many businesses (especially those outside core tech that still depend on such workers) more expensive to run. And for workers in global hubs, one could argue that the concentration in one geographic location (including immigration) has actually lead to higher demand due to the increase in vibrancy and rate of innovation, leading to an increase in salaries.
- skippyboxedhero 4y ago
  It isn't. You are saying it "should"...wages in the UK are rising 4% slower than inflation, so there is real erosion of wages WHILST there is the biggest labour shortage in the history of the UK. Just speaking generally, labour tends to be a market in which there is massive govt intervention (this is particularly the case in the UK). The normal rules of economics do not hold. One very big factor in the UK is universal credit. You can Google this for yourself but the relevance here is that it acts as a wage subsidy for employers, this gets people into work but there is very little incentive to work more hours (despite the govt being able to remove universal credit from people who refuse to work more). The UK has got read of the persistently high unemployment under left-wing govts of the 2000s but has failed to improve productivity. We employ more people but they are barely producing more on aggregate. Immigration, more women working (universal credit generally supports more women more), it is all coalescing, nothing is working properly.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    Universal credit is terrible: people on UC are significantly more likely to not be able to afford food and rent. https://www.trusselltrust.org/what-we-do/research-advocacy/universal-credit-and-foodbank-use/ https://www.trusselltrust.org/what-we-do/research-advocacy/u... > We employ more people but they are barely producing more on aggregate Yes, and this is a management/underinvestment problem. Either better working practices need to be introduced or capital investment to substitute for labour.
    - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
      ...right because universal credit is a benefit target at poor people. Almost everyone who is on universal credit will receive a rent subsidy too (add it up: employer subsidy, landlord subsidy...everything is subsidized). The main issue with UC is that it is too generous and significantly reduces the incentive to work (and btw, UC was introduced specifically to increase the incentive to work and get rid of structural unemployment...it did the latter but has failed totally at the former...all we did is give employers a wage subsidy, and it didn't actually lead to more productivity or more anything). No, it isn't. Because labour is not a substitute for a machine, you can get rid of a worker for a machine but a machine doesn't vote, can't riot, etc. You still need to feed and clothe a human. The UK has, literally, millions of people who need work and will be unable to support themselves with the economy at the current size. I don't know what the solution is, but we won't be able to grow our way out of this (we tried in the early 2010s, it didn't work, we tried in the 2000s, it didn't work). One issue is that we spend massive amounts of money on subsidies but don't invest in skills (a lot of the problem today is with older people...so improving education won't work there). The scale of the underemployment is probably ~5m people...in a working population of 32m...it is far bigger than people think AND we are bringing 1m people a year into the economy whose fertility is significantly higher...it is a very big problem.
      - pjc50 4y ago
        > and it didn't actually lead to more productivity or more anything Yes, and this is a demonstration that benefit cuts to starve people into working are not going to work. > main issue with UC is that it is too generous People at the foodbank are not going to agree with this. > scale of the underemployment is probably ~5m people...in a working population of 32m [citation needed] > don't invest in skills This I can agree on. > The UK has, literally, millions of people who need work The headline is "labour shortage"? There's no evidence of a vast hidden army of the unemployed, this isn't the 1980s.
mantas 4y ago
... by working for much lower wages than locals are willing to work for.
willcipriano 4y ago
Labor shortage is a capital euphemism for "the labor market isn't completely saturated and we are starting to have to return some of the rewards of work to the workers as opposed to the capital side". Personally I wouldn't allow any low skill immigration (happy to import lower priced doctors, etc in areas where costs have gone insane) until the standard of living for the poor increases to a more reasonable level, it has shifted to be far more in favor of capitol over the past 50 years or so. In before the lump of labor folks wake up, low immigration can't simutainously explain why inflation is high (due to high wages) and also not cause lower wages when you increase it. Edit: made more clear, added context
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  It's not so slanted. It just means jobs arent filled. It could be lack of able workers. It could be lack of pay. It could be lack of product market fit. Probably some combination of all. You're reading the rest in.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    There were labor shortages to work the oil sands which is how you ended up with people making $30-40 hr to work McDonald’s (because if they didn’t pay that high the employees would go work the sands).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
linuxftw 4y ago
The article explains that the low-paid EU workers are no longer there to fill service sector jobs. Domestic employees won't accept those wages or working conditions. We can see real time in the UK the effect that mass immigration has on wages: it keeps them way lower than the market rate otherwise.
- skippyboxedhero 4y ago
  You can already see it. The early 2010s was a period of very high population growth due to immigration, the economy has flatlined. This year has seen the same thing: rather than employ the large number of workless Brits, record visa numbers...no growth. Btw, something interesting about the UK is that there has been zero growth in the natural population for (I believe) almost three decades. All the growth has been immigration and natural growth from immigrants (who often have significantly higher fertility).
  - linuxftw 4y ago
    That's most of the developed world now. People are having fewer kids and having them later, all or almost all population growth is being driven by the developing world. Personally, I don't know how the UK puts up with it. My colleagues over there make 1/3 of what I make, have 1/3 the size house, and pay 5x as much for it.
    - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
      Disposable income per capita is high relative to Europe. Prices are relatively low (at a cost, food is one of the highest inflation categories, meat highest within that...I still don't understand how chicken is so cheap, animal welfare is generally high...but it just shouldn't be this cheap...same thing with vegetables, retail is so consolidated that farmers have been getting short-changed for decades). Generally, it is good to be a consumer. The issues that the UK are similar to a lot of developed countries just worse, and made worse by unusually bad govt interventions over decades. The frustrating thing about the UK is that a lot of the hard stuff is done well but it is just thrown away by nonsense policy in other areas (i.e. we have a great tertiary education system, and absolutely horrible primary/secondary so relatively few Brits can actually get value of more education...it is just nonsensical) If planning/housing was solved conclusively, it would resolve 75% of the issues impacting consumers.
neilwilson 4y ago
It causes two effects - wage rises are suppressed - labour is used instead of capital investment Labour should always be in short supply and 'reassuringly expensive'. That way there is an incentive to replace it with machinery - which is where productivity and an improved standard of living comes from. If a firm wants to use 'foreigners' then they should build the factory where the foreigners live and repatriate the profits. That way social capital is maintained. We shouldn't judge economic success by how far away from your mum you have to live to get a job.
skippyboxedhero 4y ago
If you look at the NHS, this is clearly happening because training is so expensive here (the govt pay for it). Easier to hire someone from West Africa or East Asia whose training cost £1k than hire someone from the UK who will require, at least, £50k+ for training (and ofc, when Covid hit...some of these people just left). This is multi-faceted. The rise in health problems is related to the collapse in the NHS. Early retirement was related to the Covid stimmy (and you are seeing people come back). There is a massive issue with training, with how companies hire...but it is also the case that high levels of immigration aren't helping (particularly at the low-skill end, the NLW is £10/hour...how are you supposed to compete with someone who will work for £3/hour cash-in-hand because they have govt-subsidized accommodation and don't pay tax). I don't see how this gets fixed. If you talk to most Brits they will tell you that H2/21 was the best labour market for workers for years, there was unprecedented job switching...that happened to follow a period when immigration was low, ignoring this kind of stuff because you think immigration is always good (it isn't for the countries that are left with no workers either) is committing the same error that you accuse others of.

I don't mean to defend xenophobic attitudes against immigration, but labor shortage should lead to higher wages, so the argument against immigration that they depress wages would still hold.

nonethewiser 4y ago
That doesn't defend xenophobia in any way. Being against immigration in some scenarios does not mean you're xenophobic.
trashtester 4y ago
Specifically, labor shortages lead to higher salaries for those groups who no longer have to compete with the type of immigrants that used to come, and only if the demand is limited. But for most other groups, it may lead to a reduction in real salaries, due to price inflation. Fewer carpenters makes housing more expensive, and fewer tech workers can make many businesses (especially those outside core tech that still depend on such workers) more expensive to run. And for workers in global hubs, one could argue that the concentration in one geographic location (including immigration) has actually lead to higher demand due to the increase in vibrancy and rate of innovation, leading to an increase in salaries.
skippyboxedhero 4y ago
It isn't. You are saying it "should"...wages in the UK are rising 4% slower than inflation, so there is real erosion of wages WHILST there is the biggest labour shortage in the history of the UK. Just speaking generally, labour tends to be a market in which there is massive govt intervention (this is particularly the case in the UK). The normal rules of economics do not hold. One very big factor in the UK is universal credit. You can Google this for yourself but the relevance here is that it acts as a wage subsidy for employers, this gets people into work but there is very little incentive to work more hours (despite the govt being able to remove universal credit from people who refuse to work more). The UK has got read of the persistently high unemployment under left-wing govts of the 2000s but has failed to improve productivity. We employ more people but they are barely producing more on aggregate. Immigration, more women working (universal credit generally supports more women more), it is all coalescing, nothing is working properly.
- pjc50 4y ago
  Universal credit is terrible: people on UC are significantly more likely to not be able to afford food and rent. https://www.trusselltrust.org/what-we-do/research-advocacy/universal-credit-and-foodbank-use/ https://www.trusselltrust.org/what-we-do/research-advocacy/u... > We employ more people but they are barely producing more on aggregate Yes, and this is a management/underinvestment problem. Either better working practices need to be introduced or capital investment to substitute for labour.
  - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
    ...right because universal credit is a benefit target at poor people. Almost everyone who is on universal credit will receive a rent subsidy too (add it up: employer subsidy, landlord subsidy...everything is subsidized). The main issue with UC is that it is too generous and significantly reduces the incentive to work (and btw, UC was introduced specifically to increase the incentive to work and get rid of structural unemployment...it did the latter but has failed totally at the former...all we did is give employers a wage subsidy, and it didn't actually lead to more productivity or more anything). No, it isn't. Because labour is not a substitute for a machine, you can get rid of a worker for a machine but a machine doesn't vote, can't riot, etc. You still need to feed and clothe a human. The UK has, literally, millions of people who need work and will be unable to support themselves with the economy at the current size. I don't know what the solution is, but we won't be able to grow our way out of this (we tried in the early 2010s, it didn't work, we tried in the 2000s, it didn't work). One issue is that we spend massive amounts of money on subsidies but don't invest in skills (a lot of the problem today is with older people...so improving education won't work there). The scale of the underemployment is probably ~5m people...in a working population of 32m...it is far bigger than people think AND we are bringing 1m people a year into the economy whose fertility is significantly higher...it is a very big problem.
    - pjc50 4y ago
      > and it didn't actually lead to more productivity or more anything Yes, and this is a demonstration that benefit cuts to starve people into working are not going to work. > main issue with UC is that it is too generous People at the foodbank are not going to agree with this. > scale of the underemployment is probably ~5m people...in a working population of 32m [citation needed] > don't invest in skills This I can agree on. > The UK has, literally, millions of people who need work The headline is "labour shortage"? There's no evidence of a vast hidden army of the unemployed, this isn't the 1980s.

mantas 4y ago

... by working for much lower wages than locals are willing to work for.

willcipriano 4y ago

Labor shortage is a capital euphemism for "the labor market isn't completely saturated and we are starting to have to return some of the rewards of work to the workers as opposed to the capital side". Personally I wouldn't allow any low skill immigration (happy to import lower priced doctors, etc in areas where costs have gone insane) until the standard of living for the poor increases to a more reasonable level, it has shifted to be far more in favor of capitol over the past 50 years or so. In before the lump of labor folks wake up, low immigration can't simutainously explain why inflation is high (due to high wages) and also not cause lower wages when you increase it. Edit: made more clear, added context

nonethewiser 4y ago
It's not so slanted. It just means jobs arent filled. It could be lack of able workers. It could be lack of pay. It could be lack of product market fit. Probably some combination of all. You're reading the rest in.
- bombcar 4y ago
  There were labor shortages to work the oil sands which is how you ended up with people making $30-40 hr to work McDonald’s (because if they didn’t pay that high the employees would go work the sands).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

linuxftw 4y ago

The article explains that the low-paid EU workers are no longer there to fill service sector jobs. Domestic employees won't accept those wages or working conditions. We can see real time in the UK the effect that mass immigration has on wages: it keeps them way lower than the market rate otherwise.

skippyboxedhero 4y ago
You can already see it. The early 2010s was a period of very high population growth due to immigration, the economy has flatlined. This year has seen the same thing: rather than employ the large number of workless Brits, record visa numbers...no growth. Btw, something interesting about the UK is that there has been zero growth in the natural population for (I believe) almost three decades. All the growth has been immigration and natural growth from immigrants (who often have significantly higher fertility).
- linuxftw 4y ago
  That's most of the developed world now. People are having fewer kids and having them later, all or almost all population growth is being driven by the developing world. Personally, I don't know how the UK puts up with it. My colleagues over there make 1/3 of what I make, have 1/3 the size house, and pay 5x as much for it.
  - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
    Disposable income per capita is high relative to Europe. Prices are relatively low (at a cost, food is one of the highest inflation categories, meat highest within that...I still don't understand how chicken is so cheap, animal welfare is generally high...but it just shouldn't be this cheap...same thing with vegetables, retail is so consolidated that farmers have been getting short-changed for decades). Generally, it is good to be a consumer. The issues that the UK are similar to a lot of developed countries just worse, and made worse by unusually bad govt interventions over decades. The frustrating thing about the UK is that a lot of the hard stuff is done well but it is just thrown away by nonsense policy in other areas (i.e. we have a great tertiary education system, and absolutely horrible primary/secondary so relatively few Brits can actually get value of more education...it is just nonsensical) If planning/housing was solved conclusively, it would resolve 75% of the issues impacting consumers.

neilwilson 4y ago

It causes two effects - wage rises are suppressed - labour is used instead of capital investment Labour should always be in short supply and 'reassuringly expensive'. That way there is an incentive to replace it with machinery - which is where productivity and an improved standard of living comes from. If a firm wants to use 'foreigners' then they should build the factory where the foreigners live and repatriate the profits. That way social capital is maintained. We shouldn't judge economic success by how far away from your mum you have to live to get a job.

skippyboxedhero 4y ago

If you look at the NHS, this is clearly happening because training is so expensive here (the govt pay for it). Easier to hire someone from West Africa or East Asia whose training cost £1k than hire someone from the UK who will require, at least, £50k+ for training (and ofc, when Covid hit...some of these people just left). This is multi-faceted. The rise in health problems is related to the collapse in the NHS. Early retirement was related to the Covid stimmy (and you are seeing people come back). There is a massive issue with training, with how companies hire...but it is also the case that high levels of immigration aren't helping (particularly at the low-skill end, the NLW is £10/hour...how are you supposed to compete with someone who will work for £3/hour cash-in-hand because they have govt-subsidized accommodation and don't pay tax). I don't see how this gets fixed. If you talk to most Brits they will tell you that H2/21 was the best labour market for workers for years, there was unprecedented job switching...that happened to follow a period when immigration was low, ignoring this kind of stuff because you think immigration is always good (it isn't for the countries that are left with no workers either) is committing the same error that you accuse others of.