[A-List] UK & the imperialist chain: brain drain

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

The hypocrisy of the current clampdown on immigration and asylum is of
course riddled with practical as well as rhetorical contradictions. But
the practical effect of this is simply to exacerbate the economic
problems faced by those countries which lose the lucky talented few who
have been cherry-picked by countries like Britain in order to shore up
their own staffing difficulties.


Britain slips open fortress door

In the first of a two-part investigation, Guardian reporters look at
Whitehall's changing perceptions of the economic advantages of using
migrant labour and find a twist to a tale of the north-east

Heather Stewart
Tuesday May 21, 2002
The Guardian

The rise of the far right in Europe, with Jean-Marie Le Pen's strong
showing in the first round of the French presidential elections and the
success of murdered Pim Fortyun's party in the Netherlands, brings with
it the risk of a backlash against migrant workers. But the economic case
for attracting foreigners into the labour market is growing stronger.

Historically countries which have been open to immigrants, such as the
US, have grown faster and created more jobs than those like Germany and
Japan, which have shut themselves off. With falling birth rates, many
countries that have never considered the advantages of migration will
find themselves needing to fill the fiscal gap with workers from abroad.

In Britain, while most of the headlines have been captured by the issue
of how we treat asylum seekers, a head of steam has been building in
Whitehall behind the idea of using foreign workers to make up for skills
shortages and boost growth. For the first time since the waves of
migrants in the post-war period, the official line is that foreign
workers are good for the economy. The new mantra at the Home Office is
"managed migration".

It published research earlier this year which contradicted the
perception that migrants are a burden on the state. The research
estimated that they contributed £31.2bn in taxes in the financial year
1999-2000, but increased government expenditure by only £28.8bn in
consuming public services. It concluded: "Migrants reduced the amount
that the existing population paid in taxes, or increased the amount they
received in welfare benefits, by £2.5bn. This is equivalent to around
1p on the basic rate of income tax."

As a result of this analysis, the Treasury upgraded its Budget estimate
of the rate at which the economy can grow in the long term, justifying
the adjustment partly on the basis of the benefits of net migration. It
believes new migrants of working age - about 150,000 people a year -
could add about 0.6% to the trend rate of output growth by increasing
the size of the working population.

So although the asylum and immigration bill contains tough measures for
cracking down on illegal workers and setting up "accommodation centres"
for asylum seekers whose applications are being processed, the Home
Office is also working to expand legal entry, and on giving people a
better start when they arrive.

The argument for migration is thrown into sharp relief in the current
environment. With unemployment at historic lows, many industries are
finding it difficult to recruit staff within Britain - and are happy to
fill the vacancies with workers from abroad.

Construction firms and hotels, for example, need low-skilled, often
temporary workers who are prepared to work long hours or odd shifts for
no more than the minimum wage. And when the economy is growing strongly,
few resident workers want to do back-breaking, temporary, part-time work
on farms, when they can get easier, better-paid jobs in services.

High-skilled jobs can also be hard to fill, because it can be difficult
to find people with the right skills. The NHS hits the headlines when it
recruits doctors or nurses from abroad, but Work Permits UK, the
government agency which decides whether employers can bring migrants in
to fill specific jobs, recognises "acute shortages" in other areas,
including electronic and structural engineering.

Because migrants are self-selecting they tend to be more
entrepreneurial, and often have more skills than their native
counterparts. A paper on migration by the performance and innovation
unit, a government think-tank, showed a higher proportion of migrants
are self-employed - and a higher proportion have degree level
qualifications or above - than their British counterparts.

One of the most common arguments against migration is that foreign
workers come in and "take our jobs", damaging the prospects of UK
workers. The government argues that as long as it is not seen as a cheap
substitute for educating native workers and helping them out of
unemployment, temporary flows of workers can help create a more
"flexible labour market", allowing the economy to respond to
fluctuations in demand.

As the Institute for Public Policy Research says in its response to the
recent migration white paper: "Labour migration is not an alternative to
developing the skills and productivity of, and employment opportunities
for, the existing population. Migration complements their contribution."

The work permits system, the Home Office's principal managed migration
route, is tailored to head off the "they take our jobs" argument.
Employers have to show that they have already conducted a "resident
labour test" to prove they cannot fill their vacant position in the
local labour market, and that the worker they would like to bring into
the country has the relevant skills and qualifications.

The political case for bringing in low-skilled migrants is more
contentious. The government is expanding its seasonal agricultural
workers scheme to bring in 20,000 people next year on a short-term basis
to help ensure farmers have sufficient labour to harvest their crops.

But the IPPR argues this will not help fill thousands more year-round
vacancies in other parts of the economy. "We very much doubt that
seasonal schemes, allowing entry for six months only, will satisfy the
majority of employers whose demand for low-skilled staff is not seasonal
but permanent, not least in the hotel and catering sector in London, in
clothing manufacturing, for instance, and in construction," the IPPR
says. "Having to induct and train new staff every six months will not be
an attractive option."

The government is looking at expanding the working holidaymakers scheme,
which allows Commonwealth citizens to come for a maximum of a year and
work for half that time; it also wants to change the fact that it is
almost exclusively taken up by citizens of old Commonwealth countries,
such as Australia.

Despite the political difficulties of opening up fortress Britain, the
government has inched closer to a modern migration policy since it came
to power. If it can continue to walk the tightrope between economic
benefits and political flak, we can expect to see an increasingly
liberal migration policy developing in future.