Ian Duncan-Smith is due to release a report which will show that one million people who have claimed benefits for three of the last four years are fit for work. The welfare bill shows no sign of diminishing. Indeed it is expected to rise to £198 billion by 2017. But as unemployment and the burden on taxpayers increases so does the number of those in employment.
How can this happen? Over the last year 400,000 people have found work, so why is employment still rising? Certainly some of those now in employment are people who had been economically inactive but are now in work. And some of those now unemployed are people in the same category who have not yet found work.
But let’s not fool ourselves. Government has already calculated that the vast majority of new jobs are going to migrants. And population growth of the indigenous British people is low. The reason that unemployment remains at a high level, even when 400,000 people have found jobs is because the constant flood of economic migrants is soaking up those jobs which are being created in the private sector and is swelling the ranks of the unemployed.
If there are 3 million recent economic migrants in the country (and there are in fact many more) then as a matter of simple commonsense they must either have found employment or be unemployed. If they have found employment, then outside the narrow East European grocer’s shop sector they must have taken a job which an indigenous unemployed Briton could be doing. If they have not found a job then, as is the case with the majority of the Somalian community in the UK, they must be a drain on the national economy. Either way, the flood of migration is a direct contributor to the social costs of an employed British population.
If net migration is really 250,000 a year then a strict reduction of migration should see an immediate release of employment opportunities. If recent migrants were required to return home, outside of strict criteria, then the job market could be expected to absorb British unemployed even more quickly. And if unemployed migrants and longer term residents were encouraged to return to their homelands then this must surely release very large numbers of jobs to British people.
The official statistics of National Insurance numbers issued to adult overseas nationals provide us with a very clear description of the effect of migration on the state of national employment. In the last ten years about 6 million National Insurance numbers have been provided to foreign nationals with the intent of allowing them to take up employment in the UK. Of course this does not include foreign nationals who are given British citizenship before requesting an NI number, nor does it include the children of those who have been given British citizenship before reaching adulthood and being provided with an NI number. But if we concentrate only on the foreign nationals being given permission to work, we must surely assume quite reasonably that many of these 6 million foreign nationals, all given permission to work here in the UK, are doing just that.
At present the rate of National Insurance numbers being issued to foreign nationals is 670,000 a year. This provides a much clearer picture of the effects of migration on the job market than the official attempts to use the rate of Net Migration as a measure. In 2011, for instance, 150,000 National Insurance numbers were issued to nationals of the main EU states. 225,000 were issued to the EU accession states which are the Eastern European countries recently given membership of the EU. 185,000 were issued to nationals of the Middle East and Asia, and 50,000 were given to nationals of various African nations. Only 50,000 were issued to foreign nationals of Australia and New Zealand, the USA and Canada, which might be considered our closest cultural and social neighbours.
We can see that at present about 510,000 National Insurance numbers, providing permission for foreigners to work in the UK, were issued to Europeans, Asians, Africans and Arabs. If only half of these numbers go on to find employment in the UK this must have a significant and damaging effect on the state of British employment.
Here is an idea. If these issues of National Insurance numbers were reduced to 10% of current levels for members of these global regions then Britain will become a less magnetic destination for migrant workers. Those foreign nationals who have no employment but who have been already given a National Insurance number could be required to leave the UK after a certain period of unemployment or could be denied access to UK benefits. If we reasonably consider that 250,000 jobs a year are being taken up by foreign nationals then this sort of level of employment would become available for British nationals.
If 250,000 British nationals are able to find work rather than being on benefits this will produce many positive outcomes. Not only will the benefits bill be reduced, but tax revenues will increase. The number of migrants will be reduced together with the additional strain on infrastructure which large numbers of migrants cannot help produce.
Mass migration drives unemployment up. But restricting the numbers of foreign nationals able to work here in the UK will produce a virtuous circle and begin to reverse the effects of two decades of immigration.
The laudable objective that you identify simply cannot be achieved as long as we are a member of the EU and subject to the requirements of the European Convention of Human Rights and the Human Rights Act.
And, as Ken Clarke and Angela Eagle agreed on the News at One today, there is no intent or desire in either government or opposition to even suspend membership of the ECHR.
So, it’s vote UKIP to challenge the status quo or, echoing Clausewitz, continue politics by other means.
There is another side to this, of course – why do employers prefer to take on foreigners rather than Brits? Alexander Boot gave an answer to this in a rather bleak assessment yesterday – we have reared hordes of young people utterly lacking in qualities that would appeal to an employer.
These young people have been badly let down by what the papers like to call Broken Britain.
How we can make up for this sorry cycle of neglect, and stop it from continuing I have, I’m sorry to say, no idea.
Meanwhile, personable Poles and eager Estonians offer something that sullen Brits do not.
Frank Sutton@April 24th, 2013 – 23:25
Article in the mail today reporting british employers despair at how unready many british are unready for work. They write application letters in text speak, turn up late for interviews etc.
I have seen interviewees who think business dress is jeans and trainers, and one applicant turned up with a toddler for her interview.
One wonders if they do it on purpose so they can say they have applied for a job, fail and still get job seekers allowance.
Alexsandr, yes you are right. Lots of people know how to turn up for a job to be sure not to get it.
On the other hand I know lots of young adults trying hard to break into a chosen career and doing any sort of job to pay their way. I know other low skilled young adults who work very hard at manual work each day and can’t be faulted for their effort.
There are problems with the expectations of some youth and their preparedness for work. But I also think that there is a myth being perpetrated which is designed to foster the idea that we need millions of immigrants because our own children are useless. Generally I don’t think they are.
I wonder what proportion of NIs issued are those reuquired by fraudsters as an indispensable part of the the jigsaw in building/creating fake identities for benefit, housing and other frauds.
sorry ‘required’.
I find it sad that the Bleeding Hearts Brigade shed crocodile tears over the miserable wages paid to workers in the so-called Third World. These do-gooders abraid people who buy at Primark and other stores which stock cheap merchandise. Yet who buys at these shops? Not the cosy middle-class whingers, not the wealthy. No, mostly hard up young people and mothers of growing families. Why don’t the Bleeding Hearts concern themselves with the almost slave labour minimum wage which is what Britain pays those not lucky enough to have decent jobs?