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If this is true then immigration is fundamentally an attack on your country's labor class.

ChuckNorris89 3y ago
It is (depends). If I'm looking to fill a position and have 5 candidates who demand X but if I can import 5 more candidates from abroad that will accept X-10%X, then great for me, I just eroded their bargaining power, and sucks for those 5 locals who will have to look elsewhere. Once enough employers have access to the external labor pool, then the bargaining power of the locals is reduced permanently, and so does their quality of life, if they don't have the skills to move upmarket in jobs that don't have competition from outside. Immigration is great when private investments and the economy is growing faster than the labor market can absorb them (like the US) because then it fuels the fire and lifts everyone up. But, if you're in a meh economy (parts of Europe), stagnating wages, high taxes, high bureaucracy, low investments, high CoL, expensive real estate, then importing extra workers only increases inequality as it puts downward pressure on wages and only enriches the upper class who can now affords a platinum trim on their superyachts instead of a gold trim. Immigration is a very complex topic that doesn't have a right or wrong answer but depends on the economy of a country and the situation of housing and public services which the immigrant population will need.
ta1243 3y ago
Generally yes, unless your labor class doesn't want to, or can't, do the jobs those immigrants do, but your labor class wants to benefit from them.
SkyPuncher 3y ago
Isn't that essentially what drove large swaths of people to support Trump? Bogeyman "illegals" crossing the border to "take their jobs"? Fundamentally, people don't immigrate to countries where they think their lives will be worse. They move to places with more economic opportunities. That introduces more labor supply into the destination country. At controlled immigration levels, this is healthy and necessary.
antupis 3y ago
Yeah if it is closed system like in the example but modern economies rarely are.
rz2k 3y ago
The technical term for this idea is the “lump of labor fallacy”. Contrary to the idea that there is only a fixed amount of work to do, increasing an economy’s population tends to increase its aggregate output at an even greater rate than the headcount, ie average wages increase. One of the reasons is that it increases the ability for greater specialization. If some other economy paid for the unproductive years of childhood, the benefit is even greater.
- deleted 3y ago
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- ChuckNorris89 3y ago
  >increasing an economy’s population tends to increase its aggregate output at an even greater rate than the headcount, ie average wages increase. That's true only if you cherry-pick certain countries with already booming economies, like the US, where adding more workers adds more fuel to the fire, especially in the low interest environment of the past 10 years. But most other countries with much slower economies, won't benefit from even more workers the way you described ( average wages increase) but more like average wage decreases. Adding more workers won't benefit a stagnating economy.

It is (depends). If I'm looking to fill a position and have 5 candidates who demand X but if I can import 5 more candidates from abroad that will accept X-10%X, then great for me, I just eroded their bargaining power, and sucks for those 5 locals who will have to look elsewhere. Once enough employers have access to the external labor pool, then the bargaining power of the locals is reduced permanently, and so does their quality of life, if they don't have the skills to move upmarket in jobs that don't have competition from outside. Immigration is great when private investments and the economy is growing faster than the labor market can absorb them (like the US) because then it fuels the fire and lifts everyone up. But, if you're in a meh economy (parts of Europe), stagnating wages, high taxes, high bureaucracy, low investments, high CoL, expensive real estate, then importing extra workers only increases inequality as it puts downward pressure on wages and only enriches the upper class who can now affords a platinum trim on their superyachts instead of a gold trim. Immigration is a very complex topic that doesn't have a right or wrong answer but depends on the economy of a country and the situation of housing and public services which the immigrant population will need.

ta1243 3y ago

Generally yes, unless your labor class doesn't want to, or can't, do the jobs those immigrants do, but your labor class wants to benefit from them.

SkyPuncher 3y ago

Isn't that essentially what drove large swaths of people to support Trump? Bogeyman "illegals" crossing the border to "take their jobs"? Fundamentally, people don't immigrate to countries where they think their lives will be worse. They move to places with more economic opportunities. That introduces more labor supply into the destination country. At controlled immigration levels, this is healthy and necessary.

antupis 3y ago

Yeah if it is closed system like in the example but modern economies rarely are.

rz2k 3y ago

The technical term for this idea is the “lump of labor fallacy”. Contrary to the idea that there is only a fixed amount of work to do, increasing an economy’s population tends to increase its aggregate output at an even greater rate than the headcount, ie average wages increase. One of the reasons is that it increases the ability for greater specialization. If some other economy paid for the unproductive years of childhood, the benefit is even greater.

deleted 3y ago
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ChuckNorris89 3y ago
>increasing an economy’s population tends to increase its aggregate output at an even greater rate than the headcount, ie average wages increase. That's true only if you cherry-pick certain countries with already booming economies, like the US, where adding more workers adds more fuel to the fire, especially in the low interest environment of the past 10 years. But most other countries with much slower economies, won't benefit from even more workers the way you described ( average wages increase) but more like average wage decreases. Adding more workers won't benefit a stagnating economy.