Re: 'We need migrant labour'
George Kerevan argues in The Scotsman that we need migrant labour. The article is subscription only so I'll include a few snippets here:
WHAT are trades unions for? They are certainly important enough for Gordon Brown to address the brothers and sisters of the TUC at their Brighton annual jamboree with a promise of 500,000 more "British jobs for British workers".
This refrain struck me as a trifle jingoistic - woe betide John Swinney if he ever talked about "Scottish jobs for Scottish workers". But Brown was out to placate the unions with what, in an earlier Labour era, would have been called a Social Contract. In effect, he was offering more jobs in return for wage moderation in the public sector...
Assuming the world economy does not decelerate following a likely US recession, the UK economy could continue to grow at above trend. But the jobs that it will generate are of two kinds: highly skilled ones that can only be filled from abroad; and low-skilled ones that could (in theory) be filled by Brits. However, there is little evidence that young British males are prepared to work for the minimum wage, so any new unskilled service jobs will be filled by immigrants...
With this in mind, consider another dubious Brown offering to the unions - a plan to force skilled workers coming to the UK (from outside the EU) to learn English before they arrive. The aim is to make it more difficult for such workers to meet the UK entry requirements, and so free up jobs for locals. The government estimates that 35,000 of the 95,000 skilled migrants who entered the UK last year would have failed this test.
However, it seems unlikely that there will be many young unemployed people from the Liverpool housing estates, or similar, who could easily take up those 35,000 jobs. After all, we let foreign workers into the UK because they have the skills our own work force lacks - low-skilled workers do not have a right to apply for permanent residency.
This move is an unnecessary interference in the labour market which will dry up a valuable source of skilled workers. Paradoxically, the one thing calculated to tighten the private-sector labour market and cause wage inflation is blocking the entry of skilled foreign workers.
Actually, I think most public-sector wages (outside the professions) are absurdly low which explains why productivity in the NHS and local government is so poor - cheap labour means managers do not seek to use it well, while low wages produce unmotivated staff. There is a case for raising these wages to boost productivity, but I don't expect Brown (or union militants) to grasp the advantages of productivity bargaining.
Kerevan makes some important points that are easily lost in political debate. I think Brown has overplayed the 'British' card of late and I am sure it is purely about political positioning. Whether this really does feed through into concrete policy measures is another matter, though Brown has not shown himself to be averse to regulations that cost jobs and harm businesses.
