Immigration

[sobrique]

Looks like Immigration is shaping up to be a big election issue.
Both the 'major' players are claiming that they're going to control, throttle back, and otherwise reduce immigration.

I don't see what they're on about. What's wrong with people coming to our country to live and work? Sure this is a *good* thing.

Oh yes, there's the argument about not enough infrastructure to support immigrants. But really, how do you think those things are paid for? Tax on the workforce, ergo if they become a working member of society, they pay taxes etc.

The other argument, is of course 'they're taking our jobs'. Which is frankly, utter rubbish - jobs aren't a finite resource. There are no companies (as far as I'm aware, anyway) that have declared that they won't ever employ more than a set number of workers.

More population, means more demand for services and goods, which means _more_ industry. Better still if the incomers are already skilled, or wanting to learn.

Some years back, there was a large scale immigration of indians. Now, the contribution made to the country is notable - many doctors and graduates have come from this background which have inherited a very strong work ethic.

So why _are_ both our major parties announcing xenophobic (or some might even say facist) policies?
In my opinion, one of the strongest positive factors about this country is it's diversity. Some might even say it's the highest in the world. This, is surely something to include and embrace - pushing away 'those that are different' is just laying the foundations of racism.

Comments

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

Out of interest, what _does_ entitle someone to "free handouts"?
We have a large fraction of the population either unemployed, or earning low enough to not have to be paying any tax, claiming benefits.

Shall we throw out everyone who's been on the dole for more than 90% of their working life?
What about the students?

And where else are they going to go, what are they going to do if we _do_ tell them to just 'take a hike'.

If instead, we recognised that they were arriving and _not_ forcing immigrants to dodge the system, we'd have a chance of integrating them into society, bring them up to speed on English, our legal system, etc. and then turn them into productive members of society in a relatively short time frame.

[girl-working.livejournal.com]

The problem is, with the large amounts of people immigrating, can the government afford those first intergrations? If we can't sort our own unemployed/low earners out first, do we have any right to accept more?

I'm all for people to come in, be useful and be part of the country, but I think there needs to be checks such as 'What do you expect in the UK?' and a mention that yes, they need to work, and yes they have to have checks and stuff... I'm against people thinking that they can find work unskilled very easily and I think that we wouldn't /need/ to turn them away if they knew what to expect and had a realistic idea before they applied/snuck in, so that they /could/ apply for asylum, etc and be productive...

Meh. Rambling. Sorry. :)

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

If we can't 'sort' our existing unemployed, what do a few thousand more matter? You're assuming that the employment market comprises a finite number of jobs, which it doesn't.

Do we have unemployed because there 'just aren't any jobs', because 'there isn't a job that they are prepared to do' or because they don't really want to work for a living?

In the former, well, if there's an increase in population in an area, then logically there will also be an increase in 'support service demand'. Subsidised initially by the taxpayer, true, but suddenly there will be available jobs.

If it's because there isn't jobs they want to do, then the same thing applies. There's a proportion of blue collar vs. white collar jobs and they tend to scale linearly with one another.

Or if the latter, it's a moot point.