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News Articles for August 2010
August 26, 2010
Quarterly Immigration Statistics - Migrationwatch comment
August 13, 2010
Immigration and the latest employment statistics
Nearly 80% of new jobs have gone to immigrants
August 12, 2010
Immigration has Damaged Employment Prospects for British Workers
Full Text of Press Release : August 2010
Quarterly Immigration Statistics - Migrationwatch comment
The latest quarterly immigration statistics underline the urgent need for measures to bring immigration under control. The Labour government claimed to have done this; it did nothing of the sort, as today's figures show with:
- net migration rising to 196, 000, an increase of 20%
- and the number granted settlement going up by a huge 37%
- 1000 visas a day being issued to those coming for work and study with a further 500 visas for their dependants
Far from limiting numbers the Points Based System has actually contributed to their increase.
Migrationwatch chairman, Sir Andrew Green said:
'The government is to be commended for their commitment to cap non-EU economic immigration but that can only be part of the effort. If we are to stem the inexorable rise of our population to 70 million within 20 years, of which 68% will be the result of immigration, economic migrants should be expected to leave after four years and their departure recorded. Those who want to stay should qualify through a further points based system.'
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Immigration and the latest employment statistics
Nearly 80% of new jobs have gone to immigrants
The thrust of the Migrationwatch press release “Immigration has damaged employment prospects for British workers” (below) is reinforced by today’s employment statistics release on 11 August - see http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/lmsuk0810.pdf.
The bar chart on page 4 and table 8 show that nearly 80% of the increase in employment over the second quarter of 2010 has comprised immigrants.
Employment increased by 188,000 between the first and second quarters of this year but 145,000 of them or 77% went to non UK born workers, that is immigrants.
Many immigrants acquire nationality after some years in Britain but the employment figures for non British nationals are virtually the same as for non British born. This means that those who have entered employment in the last quarter are largely recent immigrants.
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Immigration has Damaged Employment Prospects for British Workers
The mass immigration of the past decade has damaged the employment opportunities of UK born workers in the areas most affected.
This is the conclusion of a new study, from think-tank Migrationwatch, (see Briefing Paper 3.10) issued on the eve of new unemployment figures due out on August 12. It has conducted the first comparison of labour market conditions in the 50 Local Authorities with the highest international immigration with conditions in the 50 with the lowest.
It shows conclusively that areas of the UK that have experienced the highest levels of immigration have higher unemployment levels than areas that have not.
The study also shows that employment rates in these areas are lower compared with areas that have received comparatively little immigration from overseas.
‘While properly controlled immigration can be of economic benefit, this demonstrates that the ‘open door’ policies of the past decade have had a damaging effect on the employment, and therefore the economic prospects and standard of living, of UK born workers in the areas most affected,’ said Sir Andrew Green, Migrationwatch chairman.
In London, which has received the highest level of immigrants, the study shows there is a positive relationship between unemployment and net immigration from abroad
For example for every one percentage point increase in the ‘international immigration rate’ (NIM)[1] of a London borough, there is on average an increase of around a fifth of one percentage point in the unemployment rate in that borough.
It also shows that immigration from overseas into London boroughs is associated with a fall in the employment rate of UK-born inhabitants: for every one percentage point increase in the share of immigrants in London boroughs there is a fall of around half a percentage point in the employment rate of UK-born inhabitants.
‘This is a very complex area and other factors such as skills levels and the operation of the benefit system are important. But too little attention has been paid to the impact of immigration on British born employment prospects,’ said Sir Andrew. ‘Our study underlines the importance of getting net immigration down to tens of thousands, as the present government has promised.’
NOTES
1 Net International Migration expressed as a percentage share of the total population of the Borough concerned.Back to top