Immigration figures

[Qwertyipad]

The figures are going up by 40%. Am I the only one that wants a points system like Australia so we can protect low paid workers and fill are skill shortages.

Pharmacists are getting paid 20% less now than 8 years ago. The reason for this is all the big chains such as Tesco actively recruit from Romania and Poland as they get them into a fixed contract at a low wage. To them it seems good until they come over and realise they are getting paid less than the dispenser. By that point there's not anything they can do until the contract has finished (usually 1-2 years). There is not a shortage of pharmacists in this country, in fact many graduates from British universities now struggle to get jobs. The chains do it purely for profit. No one wins - the immigrant who has been ripped off, the graduates who can't get a job and when they can its at a much lower rate than previous years, the Eastern European countries who find they end up with no pharmacists as they've all emigrated.

The 240,000 figure is actually net migration.

"Net migration into UK up by more than 38% to 243,000"
...
According to the migration figures from the Office for National Statistics, a total of 560,000 immigrants arrived in the UK over the 12-month period to March, while an estimated 316,000 people left."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28964323

"No one wins"

Except for business and some of those who work for lobbyists and some who are lobbied by business.

Well exactly Claig!

Claig you make a lot of good points, though I wouldn't vote for UKIP if you paid me, as I don't think they are addressing the fundamental economic problems and because the BBC promotes them so very, very much.

And Widow at no point did Claig say that immigrants don't care about community. I don't believe in communities stagnating, so immigrants can help to inject new life, but this huge migration is in nobody's interest. I'm sure that the majority of immigrants would prefer to be able to stay in their own countries, if it were safe and possible to earn a decorous wage there.

I'm not really sure anyone has the 'right' to stay where you were brought up. If my GGG Grandmother had stayed in the East End, she'd probably have died in the 1866 Cholera epidemic like her eldest sister and mother. Instead she came to Australia & made her fortune on the goldfields. People have always moved for any number of reasons; e.g. I was never going to be able to stay in country Oz, as there just aren't enough jobs there.

How in the uk does an employer enforce a fixed-term contract?

Unless the employer has paid airfares/ professional registration/ conversion fees and to leave the contract would mean the employee has to reimburse those fees??

Except for business and some of those who work for lobbyists and some who are lobbied by business.

the 500,000 or so immigrants and the 300,000 or so emigrants don't win?

I'm sure that the majority of immigrants would prefer to be able to stay in their own countries, if it were safe and possible to earn a decorous wage there.

Yes, if they had good jobs and wages, I am sure they'd love to stay in their home countries. Any proposals on how to achieve that?

“No one wins”???

The UK has ‘won’, as if the UK in 2010 would have carried on as the previous years as planned by the (then) government, there would not have been a strong rebound in Private Sector employment, the economic ‘growf’ fuelled by ever increasing government spending and Public Sector employment would only have continued until our country deficit/credit ran out, and taxes would have been substantially HIGHER than now.

Does anyone think if the UK had done a Greece, or even an Ireland, the UK would have seen such a sharp rebound in immigration, as our economic/business/tax reforms fed through to our employment levels?

Did anyone ever think that when an economy has a ‘talent pool’ of over 500 million people, that governments had to ensure their own workers were leaving full time education ready for the work place - and that pay rates would NOT be compressed downwards for most low to medium skilled workers?

So would the UK be ‘better off’ with the EU unemployment figures below AND HAVE MUCH LOWER IMMIGRATION, rather than our current 6% level and have the most employed since records began in 1971?

”European unemployment crisis”
www.economicshelp.org/blog/1247/economics/european-unemployment-2/

• Unemployment rate in the Eurozone area: 11.5% (July 2014)
• EU-28 Unemployment is slightly lower at 10.2% (July 2014)
• Total unemployment in the EU-28 is 24.850 million (July 2014)
• The Eurozone (EA-18) jobless total is now 18.409 million. (link) The highest since records began.
• Youth unemployment rates in the EU 27 is 21.8% (July 2014)
• The lowest unemployment rates are in Austria (4.9 %) and Germany (4.9 %). The highest rates are in Greece (27.2 % in January 2014) and Spain (24.5 %).

The UK in an EU with free movement of labour will always be 'punished' by net immigration figures rising while we are outperforming the rest of Europe.

If the UK remains in the EU clearly then has to ADAPT, by ensuring our infrastructure can cope, own workers can compete for our own jobs and pay rates for the less skilled will remain compressed, by maintaining a lean, efficient, low cost of government, thereby KEEPING TAXES FOR THE WORKERS as low as possible.

If the UK is in any doubt whether the EU on balance is good for the UK, then lets have a Referendum, give the people the facts, trust them to come up with the right decision and let us democratically decide - rather than keep showing ourselves up as being an immigrant non tolerant society, which our proud history shows, is not the case.

Fleeing dire circumstances is not the only reason for leaving the place of your birth (regardless of whether this means moving regionally, nationally or internationally). Plenty of people emigrate out of choice, and would emphatically not prefer to ha e stayed where they were born. And that not out of dislike of their origin, but because of making a positive choice of where they want to live.

Plenty of people emigrate out of choice, of course, widow, but they are still the minority of the world's immigrants

Coyocan - do you have a source for your claim? What is the actual breakdown of immigrants to the UK by reason?

widow, I believe that students are the largest category among non-EU migrants, so I'd assume that these are people who have made an active, positive choice to move here. And as most of those on work visas will fall into the "highly skilled" bracket, I am assuming that they too would have had other options.

It's much harder to get a breakdown of the motives among EU migrants, of course.

I don't have a source, Widow, as it is common sense.

In 1850 Ireland had a population of 4 million and England 15 million. A hundred years later Ireland had a population of 5 million and England 50 million, despite the Irish having much larger families, in general. Do you think that the Irish have genetically more wanderlust?

falling birthrate? theres been a baby boom going since at least 2009

what we need to do is make sure the unwanted/refused immigrants actually leave and have a zero tolerance policy on people coming in who have committed any serious crime, we do need to come down like a tonne of bricks on that as we ARE far too lienient, i say that as someone with experience of working with immigration helping with housing, finance etc and hear first hand some interesting stories ...thats the real issue here not 'they tuk owa jurbs'

What we need to make sure is that families aren't ripped apart by bureaucracy, decisions aren't based on a number target that must be reached no matter what, people aren't held in administrative detention (or "prison" to use another term) for years, people don't get killed because some berk paid to remove suffocates them in a stranglehold.

What we need to make sure is that we don't have an immigration system where enquiries about the progress of an application aren't answered with "you must not ask before six months have passed" whilst at the same time the 3 weeks you have to answer a query from them starts running from the day they post their letter second class to you and which may or may not arrive a couple of weeks later. Sorting out those processes could probably save a bob or two. It's ludicrous.

What we need is a system which is not dehumanising.

What we need to make sure is that families aren't ripped apart by bureaucracy, decisions aren't based on a number target that must be reached no matter what, people aren't held in administrative detention (or "prison" to use another term) for years, people don't get killed because some berk paid to remove suffocates them in a stranglehold

I agree one hundred percent with your entire comment here Widow.

I am a British citizen living in another EU country so I am an immigrant. When you are an immigrant anywhere you do have a different perspective of the problem than those who consider themselves indiginous.
Immigration is not just a problem of the UK. Immigration is a hot topic all over the EU. The issue has not been addressed honestly by most main stream politicians, but that is just doing what politicians do, ignore the electorate if you are in power or promises the earth when trying to get into power.
UKIP are (like many small party's around the EU) building their popularity by filling the void of truthfull information left by the main political party's. They feed on people's ignorance and fear. They are not necessarily telling the truth, just their spin of it.
This is no bad thing as frankly today's politicians are letting their voters down.
Perhaps the time has finally arrived when politicians will have to change but pigs and flying come to mind.
Perhaps if everyone entitled to vote, voted, but once again pigs etc.
Is democracy broken?