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It's pretty brutal here in Australia. Higher interest rates mean companies are aggressively reducing headcount. Insanely high immigration means statistically

It's pretty brutal here in Australia. Higher interest rates mean companies are aggressively reducing headcount. Insanely high immigration means statistically for every 1 job being created we're importing 1.4 workers. Job vacancies across the economy are down 16.4% yearly change according to ABS. Also according to ABS, Job vacancies, change from February 2020 to May 2024, for IT is an increase of just 1.8%. In summary, jobs market is getting ugly out there, triply so for IT. The simple solution to this & the housing crisis is to restrict immigration, but instead we have record immigration because without it we'd be in recession(our economy grew 0.1% last quarter, GDP per capita went down).

darkwizard42 2y ago
The solution to a housing crisis is to limit immigration? Wouldn’t it be to build more dense housing (thereby spurring economic activity and lowering a primary expense of households)???
- renewiltord 2y ago
  Amusingly, this is one of those cases where it’s obviously correct and people jump through all sorts of hoops to not accept it.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >Wouldn’t it be to build more dense housing No, because the NIMBYs don't want that, and if the local government has power over whether dense housing is built or not, the NIMBYs will be sure to get their local legislators to prevent it.
- elzbardico 2y ago
  Sorry for interrupting your religious moment. But in the real world you need capital for that. There’s absolutely no fucking reason to consider immigration a human right.
  - mejutoco 2y ago
    The human rights declaration https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma... There are reasons, although one might disagree with them.
    - nvy 2y ago
      Article 13 absolutely does not imply that unrestricted immigration is a human right. To do so would be to stomp on national sovereignty. Article 13 concerns freedom of movement within one's own country, and the right of return thereto.
      - mejutoco 2y ago
        > There’s absolutely no fucking reason to consider immigration a human right. Many articles in that document provide hints/the spirit of reasons one _might_ consider immigration a human right. I think it is easy to entertain the idea and think of potential reasons for it. A different matter is if that is indeed the case (your point). Still, I believe there are good reasons for it: the human rights declaration points at many of them, in many different articles. For example, here is one reason (even for self-interested people, Milton Friedman-style): equality of opportunity might give an opportunity to somebody who is more capable (who knows who is the next Einstein). It will? not necessarily. But it might? definitely, it might. That is one reason. I a not naive in regards to implementation. But there are reasons (like the above) for considering it.
- nvy 2y ago
  Here in Canada we literally cannot build housing fast enough. The government is targeting half a million immigrants annually, and we recently set an all-time housing starts record of only about half that number. Sometimes it actually is immigration that is causing problems.
  - trog 2y ago
    Same in Australia. The government keeps making big noise about these 'big' housing plans and then the number is like 30,000 new houses, which is enough for a couple months. There is zero systemic approach to this problem. I feel like I am going insane.
MrSS 2y ago
[flagged]
- defrost 2y ago
  To clarify the comment made by another, they're not hating on immigrants neccesarily, modern Australia is built on immigration. The sentiment is that right now things are tough and current immigration adds to current pressures. See Graph 1.1: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas... Australia has had steady net immigration for quite some time .. that fell in a hole during the pandemic and right now the net intake is much higher than it has ever been - it's the normal intake PLUS the backlog of everybody who didn;t come during lock down. Australia has always coped with a steady level of intake, right now it's creaking under a much higher level than normal.
  - MrSS 2y ago
    It would be great, if we talk about a topic like this, to give more insight why they think to simplify complex problems with the word immigrants. I'm also pretty sure that people on hn are people who generally work globally (take opportunities remotly without even immigrating anywere), travel and or consider moving around the world as they see fit. And your statistic is really interesting (pure curiosity) but most immigrants are coming on a temp visa. How much impact have 80.000 permanent visa immigrants in a year for one specific industry?
    - trog 2y ago
      In Australia we had over 500,000 immigrants in 2023. Much higher than usual to account for decreased numbers in prior years due to COVID. We only have 6 cities with populations bigger than 500k. We let in a number of people greater than the population of our capital city in one year. I am not anti-immigration (I have two people in my team I've helped arrange visas for). But this insane number has seriously changed the fabric of our society in real, tangible ways, purely from the pressure it has put on the housing market. We are already seeing anti-immigration rhetoric from the usual suspects and its only going to get worse. A few weeks ago there were stories about recent immigrants heading back home because the opportunities here are few and the cost of living is so high there's no way they can live here (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-08/why-these-immigrants-are-deciding-to-return-to-their-motherland/103912586 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-08/why-these-immigrants-...). (I had an Uber driver tell me he's going back to India to open a gym because he can't afford to live here in Brisbane any more.) And now literally today we're getting early warning signs of stress in the employment market, which is going to hurt the new immigrants the most (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-23/economists-warn-unemployment-rate-surge-job-applications/104132612 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-23/economists-warn-unemp...). Again - not anti-immigration. We /need/ it in Australia. There are many reasons why we're in the mess we're in and not all of them are immigration. But at the end of the day our housing market is completely fucked and the flow on effects from this are dramatic. I don't think we're simplifying the problem down to "immigration" but it's simply undeniable that it is a factor in our current situation.
nopelynopington 2y ago
This seems like a highly politicised answer Australia has 1/3rd the population of the UK on a literal continent. In Ireland we also have a housing crisis, because ironically all of our young construction workers have emigrated to Australia because there's a huge construction boom there. If you restricted immigration you'd have a bigger housing crisis
- spacebanana7 2y ago
  Ireland also has some of the strictest planning laws in the world. See the case study of a housing development of 52 flats that was prohibited because it’d harm the view out of a pub garden. https://m.independent.ie/business/irish/smithfield-eight-storey-apartments-rejected-due-to-height-and-impact-on-pub/a1729700800.html https://m.independent.ie/business/irish/smithfield-eight-sto...
- akmarinov 2y ago
  Not only that, but Australia has about as much population as Romania (26 vs 20 million)

darkwizard42 2y ago

The solution to a housing crisis is to limit immigration? Wouldn’t it be to build more dense housing (thereby spurring economic activity and lowering a primary expense of households)???

renewiltord 2y ago
Amusingly, this is one of those cases where it’s obviously correct and people jump through all sorts of hoops to not accept it.
shiroiushi 2y ago
>Wouldn’t it be to build more dense housing No, because the NIMBYs don't want that, and if the local government has power over whether dense housing is built or not, the NIMBYs will be sure to get their local legislators to prevent it.
elzbardico 2y ago
Sorry for interrupting your religious moment. But in the real world you need capital for that. There’s absolutely no fucking reason to consider immigration a human right.
- mejutoco 2y ago
  The human rights declaration https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma... There are reasons, although one might disagree with them.
  - nvy 2y ago
    Article 13 absolutely does not imply that unrestricted immigration is a human right. To do so would be to stomp on national sovereignty. Article 13 concerns freedom of movement within one's own country, and the right of return thereto.
    - mejutoco 2y ago
      > There’s absolutely no fucking reason to consider immigration a human right. Many articles in that document provide hints/the spirit of reasons one _might_ consider immigration a human right. I think it is easy to entertain the idea and think of potential reasons for it. A different matter is if that is indeed the case (your point). Still, I believe there are good reasons for it: the human rights declaration points at many of them, in many different articles. For example, here is one reason (even for self-interested people, Milton Friedman-style): equality of opportunity might give an opportunity to somebody who is more capable (who knows who is the next Einstein). It will? not necessarily. But it might? definitely, it might. That is one reason. I a not naive in regards to implementation. But there are reasons (like the above) for considering it.
nvy 2y ago
Here in Canada we literally cannot build housing fast enough. The government is targeting half a million immigrants annually, and we recently set an all-time housing starts record of only about half that number. Sometimes it actually is immigration that is causing problems.
- trog 2y ago
  Same in Australia. The government keeps making big noise about these 'big' housing plans and then the number is like 30,000 new houses, which is enough for a couple months. There is zero systemic approach to this problem. I feel like I am going insane.

MrSS 2y ago

[flagged]

defrost 2y ago
To clarify the comment made by another, they're not hating on immigrants neccesarily, modern Australia is built on immigration. The sentiment is that right now things are tough and current immigration adds to current pressures. See Graph 1.1: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas... Australia has had steady net immigration for quite some time .. that fell in a hole during the pandemic and right now the net intake is much higher than it has ever been - it's the normal intake PLUS the backlog of everybody who didn;t come during lock down. Australia has always coped with a steady level of intake, right now it's creaking under a much higher level than normal.
- MrSS 2y ago
  It would be great, if we talk about a topic like this, to give more insight why they think to simplify complex problems with the word immigrants. I'm also pretty sure that people on hn are people who generally work globally (take opportunities remotly without even immigrating anywere), travel and or consider moving around the world as they see fit. And your statistic is really interesting (pure curiosity) but most immigrants are coming on a temp visa. How much impact have 80.000 permanent visa immigrants in a year for one specific industry?
  - trog 2y ago
    In Australia we had over 500,000 immigrants in 2023. Much higher than usual to account for decreased numbers in prior years due to COVID. We only have 6 cities with populations bigger than 500k. We let in a number of people greater than the population of our capital city in one year. I am not anti-immigration (I have two people in my team I've helped arrange visas for). But this insane number has seriously changed the fabric of our society in real, tangible ways, purely from the pressure it has put on the housing market. We are already seeing anti-immigration rhetoric from the usual suspects and its only going to get worse. A few weeks ago there were stories about recent immigrants heading back home because the opportunities here are few and the cost of living is so high there's no way they can live here (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-08/why-these-immigrants-are-deciding-to-return-to-their-motherland/103912586 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-08/why-these-immigrants-...). (I had an Uber driver tell me he's going back to India to open a gym because he can't afford to live here in Brisbane any more.) And now literally today we're getting early warning signs of stress in the employment market, which is going to hurt the new immigrants the most (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-23/economists-warn-unemployment-rate-surge-job-applications/104132612 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-23/economists-warn-unemp...). Again - not anti-immigration. We /need/ it in Australia. There are many reasons why we're in the mess we're in and not all of them are immigration. But at the end of the day our housing market is completely fucked and the flow on effects from this are dramatic. I don't think we're simplifying the problem down to "immigration" but it's simply undeniable that it is a factor in our current situation.

nopelynopington 2y ago

This seems like a highly politicised answer Australia has 1/3rd the population of the UK on a literal continent. In Ireland we also have a housing crisis, because ironically all of our young construction workers have emigrated to Australia because there's a huge construction boom there. If you restricted immigration you'd have a bigger housing crisis

spacebanana7 2y ago
Ireland also has some of the strictest planning laws in the world. See the case study of a housing development of 52 flats that was prohibited because it’d harm the view out of a pub garden. https://m.independent.ie/business/irish/smithfield-eight-storey-apartments-rejected-due-to-height-and-impact-on-pub/a1729700800.html https://m.independent.ie/business/irish/smithfield-eight-sto...
akmarinov 2y ago
Not only that, but Australia has about as much population as Romania (26 vs 20 million)