So migrant workers are taking up half of the new jobs created in the UK. So what?
Yet, you could be forgiven for becoming ‘concerned’ and a little ‘disturbed’ judging by the media frenzy surrounding the issue – with well-known home of reasonable reporting the London Standard berating the government for the ‘chaos’ the Telegraph getting thoroughly ‘outraged’ by Johnny Foreigner coming over here and taking all our jobs, and even the BBC’s normally mild-mannered economics editor
Evan Davies getting out of his pram (while still hedging his bets) over the dodgy numbers – you’d think that it actually mattered; that the country was awash with home-grown talent just bursting to break into the jobs market if only the damn incomers weren’t sneaking in there and taking all the prime vacancies.
Yet a quick look at the top jobs for migrants – factory workers, warehouse staff, packers, kitchen porters, cleaners, farm hand, waiter, room attendant – and its clear the over-excited imbeciles churning out the scare stories, really have nothing to complain about as these are mostly jobs that ‘true Brits’ no longer want to sully their hands doing.
Statistics though, are, by their very nature, wide open to interpretation, pretty much allowing anyone to prove anything at all. Add to that, the fact that the people compiling the statistics are notoriously unreliable, as recently demonstrated in the Top 100 Living Geniuses poll quite rightly exposed as bogus in the Guardian.
So is the raging tide of inward migration a big deal? Up to a point, yes, and a serious debate – rather than the rabid rantings of the media mosh pit – needs to take place between the Home Office, employers groups (such as the British Retail Consortium and the CBI), non-partisan think-tanks and others on the sustainability of the current migration policy.
But this current non-story is mainly of interest to the intolerant upstarts eager to have more say in running the country and happy to stir up hatred a fear where there is none – that'll be the true Conservative Party and other right-wing extremists.
Naturally, a seemingly endless stream of right-wing ‘thinkers’ have been wheeled out to condemn the government because its all Gordon Brown’s fault, while simultaneously condemning him for breaking Euro rules by saying ‘jobs for the British’ earlier this year – something you’d think they’d be cheering.
But then perhaps that’s the price we pay for 24-hour news coverage – everyone (well media types at least) getting their designer underwear in a twist over the Home Office admittance that its figures were all wrong and that there are more migrant workers than originally estimated.
Of course, a cynic might suggest that a pattern is emerging and this slip of the figures has ‘somehow happened’ to enable Tory minds to focus on their number one topic – immigration.
A case of giving them enough rope? Or at the very least, handing them a nice big gun to shoot themselves in the foot yet again.
Although, due to their self-destructive tendencies, they might have to aim a bit higher on account of no longer having a leg to stand on.
Comments (1)
you say that British people no longer want to do these jobs. I presume you mean low paid manual stuff... care homes, security guards, kitchen porters... that sort of thing. But what if British people can't afford to do that kind of work? The problem is that to a lot of immigrants the minimum wage (or under) seems like riches and unscrupolous employers (that's a lot of employers) will employ migrants, without checking their legality, because it saves them money. Why advertise for staff at £10p.h when you can get them for £6p.h. Most British people have higher aspirations than just surviving (a lot of immigrants will feel that survival and subsistance will do at least for the first year or so) because they already live here and subscribe to a capitalist culture that requires a lot of money. I welcome controlled immigration, but sadly employers take advantage of the desperation of some to profit. The idea that British people don't want jobs is mistaken.
Posted by pingu | November 13, 2007 2:42 PM
Posted on November 13, 2007 14:42