Kevin Rowan column
Jun 25 2007 By Kevin Rowan, The Journal
Migration is not a new phenomenon, it's as old as humankind. The development of the European Union has meant greater mobility and an increase in migration and is leading workers and governments to question whether this is good for us or not.
A new report published by the TUC last week shows that rather than lead to unemployment or displacement, there is growing evidence that an influx of migrant workers helps to grow the economy and the labour market as a whole grows as a result.
World Bank economic modelling shows that the potential benefit of a migration rate producing 3% growth in the size of the labour market leads to a 0.63% increase in GDP compared to no migration, with clear benefits for both those migrating and those areas receiving migrants.
The simplistic notion that migrant workers are merely displacing indigenous workers assumes that there is only a fixed amount of work to do, but experience tells us this is not how economies and labour markets work.
New migrants, however, are likely to be earning less than existing immigrants, partly because the latter are more focused on London, while new migrants are more likely to arrive in lower paying regions and take lower paid jobs.
The TUC report shows that the proportion of new migrant workers on minimum wages is 16%, compared to 10% of UK born workers and 9% of existing (pre-1999) immigrants.
There is some, limited, evidence of displacement and undercutting of wages by employers seeking to exploit migrant labour and the recent efforts to increase enforcement of employment rights are welcome.
Exploitation needs to be challenged as it neither helps the economy (in fact it reduces GVA) nor does it help in aspirations to integrate migrant workers, but it should be noted that this experience is relatively rare. The claims that migrant workers are a drain on the UK economy are also totally spurious. Home Office data clearly shows that there is a net contribution to the Treasury by people migrating to the UK and that this has consistently been the case. Without inward migration to the region we face a declining and ageing workforce, reducing our capacity to grow the region's economy and develop prosperity.
