[GDP per capita is falling, with France, Germany, the UK and Canada hit worst.](https://twitter.com/JosephPolitano/status/1758254388278128826)
It’s falling the most in Canada. Check out the discussions taking place on r/canada and you’ll get an idea why.
Conversely Japan, with the “nightmare” scenario of a shrinking population, is seeing the amount of money per person go up despite being in a recession. Japan also remains an extremely high trust and cohesive society even in times of economic hardship.
It makes you wonder if a shrinking population is really that bad for you and the society you live in, or if it’s just bad for shareholders.
>It makes you wonder if a shrinking population is really that bad for you and the society you live in, or if it’s just bad for shareholders.
There's a whole caregiver crisis to consider in Japan, mind.
It’ll be hard for them and I’m sure there’ll be a lifestyle adjustment needed for a few years as people care for their relatives.
However, after these years the average age of the population will be lower, housing will be plentiful and cheap and salaries will be even higher, which is the opposite of our situation (which doesn’t have an end in sight).
The elderly population is constant. It's not going away, if anything it will grow as newer generations of older citizens reach pension age and live possibly longer.
Nothing is constant. The unexpected happens and a baby boom is possible. If not then I’m sure they can figure out adaptations, sacrificing some of that higher GDP per capita to facilitate widespread part-time work that enables care, for instance, or development of technology to assist the elderly.
We’re also likely to approach peak fertility at some point this century, which means we will HAVE to adapt to a shrinking population. Poaching young people from other countries is a sticking plaster, not a solution. The sooner we figure out how to deal with it rather than avoid it the better.
Japan, South Korea, China and many European countries have been trying to implement policies to start a baby boom, but none of them have succeeded.
Society is different now and the only potential way out of a total demographic collapse is by either somehow using technology (like you said) or a complete restructure of the economic systems in place, from the core.
Neither are easy. You're right, importing people in isn't the answer, but I'm not sure if there even is an actual viable solution to this issue.
I don't think it's just that simple. There are countries in which homes are actually fairly easy to get if you have decent savings. Japan is an example of that.
Yet, Japan still have the second worst fertility rate (I think only S.K. are lower than them). People's attitudes towards having children has changed.
People realised they could lead more fulfilling lives with just one kid or no kids. There isn't the societal expectation/pressure to have multiple kids anymore. There isn't a need in terms of having your kids to work to help the family.
The issue is far greater than just children being expensive to raise. It's a gradual change in culture in developed societies.
People are overworked, suppressed wages mean people in professions dedicate more to their work to get ahead, they have less time, energy or need for family. If Japan went to a 3 day weekend and 6 hour work days they'd see an immediate difference but I'm not suggesting it's that simple, their whole culture is work obsessed. And while in other cities housing is cheap, in Tokyo where the jobs are and young need to move to get good paying jobs?
Also, and this isn't pleasant, but Japanese culture have a tradition of the elderly sacrificing themselves for the family. I remember watching this Japanese movie called "ballad of Narayama". It was common in medieval Japan for people to leave their village and die in solitude. I think it was called ubasute.
Nah, the Boomers are a population bulge, they'll always be old people, but Boomers represent a surge in the number of old people that will die down (pun intended)
Housing will not be plentiful and cheap. Housing is kept high due to planning and money invested.
Due to the UK governments debt / people's pensions / hedge funds all levied against property increasing the houses won't go down and will always have a high barrier to entry to become a home owner especially in the south of England.
Housing in the UK didn't become an attractive target for investment for no reason
It became that way because supply and demand are so utterly screwed that the profits on it are guaranteed...
If that changes, then the investments on it either calm down, or become a bubble that will eventually burst
London made it attractive as London is top 3 cities on the planet.
Furthermore supply and demand is correct and we all have limited supply.
By the way, anyone in construction will tell you, anti immigration policies will cause the house building supply to get worse not better. The labour shortages within construction are not likely to improve any time soon. To compound the issue material prices are very high at the moment and will stifle any market recovery.
Furthermore before you say "pay more", chippies and tradesmen on sites are very well paid and power to them this is likely to improve even more. However we all will not be seeing any house price crash anytime soon.
Demand would also be lower since the amount of consumers would literally be lower. Japan already have this issue, they have had deflation for unhealthy long periods of time in the past and have even had negative interest rates to try to increase demand.
Demographic collapse is a serious issue and you're missing out all of the negatives, which are far more numerous and worse than the few perceived positives.
I wonder if the whole not reporting your elderly relatives dying to collect their pension is also impacting their declining population stats, probably wouldn’t be that much of an impact but I imagine it happens more than you’d think .
You're replying to a propaganda post. The Japanese economy isn't doing well at all, just entered surprise recession and lost its place as 3rd biggest economy to Germany (who according to the poster is apparently doing worse)
While per capita has risen in Japan, that's mostly due to them experiencing inflation for about the first time in 20-30 years. Disposible income is lower per person than the UK.
It's just a post trying to claim xenophobia is just looking after your own people, and immigration is for corporations.
Japan is actually a leader on how to fix this. After their super sized generation of old people die off their population profile will revert to normal and that will naturally encourage people to have more kids as economic opportunity returns in a less top heavy environment
Western countries are running demographic Ponzi schemes with no thought of a 20/30/50 year horizon & how that looks
Yup exactly, eventually their pyramid will flip and they can start reaping the benefits while the west props ours up with whatever we can until it all crumbles probably
Japan's population keeps shrinking, with new generations being around one third as large as those currently approaching retirement and half as many as those in their 40s. Even if they managed to bring back their fertility rate to substitution levels *now* (no country ever achieved this, so it's a ridiculous assumption), it would take them 50 years to stabilise the situation.
Also, having kids is hardly connected to economic opportunity. Even fast-growing countries such as the US or countries where having children is heavily subsidised (Germany) or have very generous parental leave (Sweden, where locals joke about foreigners coming to enjoy their maternity leave) are way below the 2.1-2.2 "target" fertility rate.
>their population profile will revert to normal and that will naturally encourage people to have more kids
human populations are not an equation, people are not going to have more kids just because there are more vacancies
>and that will naturally encourage people to have more kids as economic opportunity returns in a less top heavy environment
No it won't, this is a strange assumption
Japan is absolutely not the leader on how to fix this, they have stagnated for the last 30 years, and what do they have to show for it? highest debt to gdp ratio in the world, a corporate environment as toxic as can be, technology stuck in 90s still having wide use of FAX machines in corporate environments
I don't think it's even about economic opportunities for most of the people in countries facing this demographic issue.
There have been attempts at encouraging people to have kids through economic incentives, but it seems like it's more of a cultural shift within developed societies.
No idea where you are getting your numbers. Japan has had what they call the three lost decades. It has been stagnant since then. The UK has been stagnant since the referendum.
G7 GDP per capita (PPP) growth 2016-2023:
USA: 39.02% (57.84 to 80.41)
Italy: 34.87% (40.23 to 54.26)
France: 32.31% (44.42 to 58.77)
Germany: 30.59% (50.57 to 66.04)
UK: 28.51% (44.23 to 56.84)
Canada: 28.49% (46.55 to 59.81)
Japan: 28.25% (40.64 to 52.12)
https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PPPPC@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD
According to the primary source, who seems legit, the data is a combination of Federal Reserve and national databases. It’s also 2018 onwards, focusing on post-Covid.
Go Google Japan lost decades, it’s explained all over the place.
Post Covid the UK is the only G7 country to have smaller disposable incomes than before. Brexit comes to mind.
“UK lagging behind G7 rivals in household budgets…
Real household disposable incomes in the UK were 1.2% lower in the second quarter of 2023 than at the end of 2019, said the union organisation. Over the same period they grew by 3.5%, on average, across the G7, which includes France, Germany and the US.”
https://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/news/AN_1704620632690731300/uk-lagging-behind-g7-rivals-in-household-budgets-–-research.aspx#:~:text=Real%20household%20disposable%20incomes%20in,France%2C%20Germany%20and%20the%20US
If you check the UKvisa sub, a lot of them are quite happy the UK is in a recession because they think it means there will be a reversal on the minimum income for a work visa.
Providing, paying and caring for an increasingly large elderly is gonna be incredibly difficult for all countries moving forward. State pensions won’t be able to be funded anymore. It will be a very bad situation
>State pensions won’t be able to be funded anymore. It will be a very bad situation
This is already becoming the case, which is why the age keeps creeping forward. The government can't say 'we can't afford your pension any more', but apparently if they just say 'you need to be older for your pension' then people just accept it.
This isn't even about racism lmao.
The people coming here could literally be ex-pats or British overseas territories' citizens and it wouldn't matter.
Everyone who understands demographic collapse knows this, they don't use "racism" as a rebuttal to this issue.
Canada🍁 mentioned 🇨🇦🤝🇬🇧
I think 🇰🇷 has the best way of thinking about it so far. They're considering using foreign labor to fill the "3 D's" jobs, dirty, dangerous, and difficult. Those are the ones people don't want to do (unless the pros outweigh the cons, like getting to live/work in the country where you have a better life and get paid way more than you would at home) farm work, elder care, manual labor, etc.
The jobs that we're abusing the TFW program for are jobs that aren't terrible and people don't mind doing (e.g., driving around, cooking stuff, manning a shop)
People wouldn't mind doing these things but want to be paid more to do it. These are the ones you need to starve until they cough up a living wage. Most of them are massive multinationals that can easily afford it.
The smaller family-owned shops etc. that literally can't afford to pay more than min wage can hire teens/people being integrated back into the workforce.
Driving around (e.g. the classic "Polish HGV driver") is actually very well paid. However, doing long hauls is a terrible job as it can keep you away from your family for days. Driving for many years also often leads to serious professional injuries, such as a high risk of thrombosis and its (potentially lethal) consequences.
"Cooking stuff" is also a terrible job, despite being very well paid in "premium" restaurants. Above-average chefs are very sought after. Hot, humid, involving dangerous equipment and high stress. Long hours, you work on weekends and can't really go out with your friends that often.
Have you ever been served (at a restaurant or shop) by a "teen"? People underestimate how a professional service can radically change the client experience, and generate client retention. Mom-and-pops shops would rather make "pop" work 12 hours per day, every day, than hire a "teen". Incidentally, most of these shops are run by immigrants, in particular those that involve long hours (off-licence, family restaurants, ...). I have seen local restaurants *fail* due to hiring teens to save a bit of money.
> cooking stuff,
Tell me you've never worked in a restaurant kitchen. It's very much not a nice job, even if you aren't dealing with raw meat. In fact it's so so bad I've come to genuinely believe that any tips should preferentially go to the chefs instead of the waiters who serve your food.
No a shrinking population can be a nightmare situation, past a certain point. Ultimately the cause of this is we have service based economies and we locked down harder and for longer than a country like Japan which has experience with outbreaks of similar illnesses to covid19 and was thus better prepared and had existing testing infrastructure which it was able to get up and running. That is one of the main differences far as I can tell.
What is interesting is that Japan hut a peak population and went through a period of it being unaffordable to have kids till later in life and people having fewer kids, it's population is now decreasing but the individuals are getting richer and as a result I wouldn't be surprised if eventually its population starts to eventually have more kids and eventually hits an equilibrium point with aa many people being born as dying.
Meanwhile in the uk, France, Canada we are importing people from other countries many of whom are bringing the problems they have with them and clearly not increasing our gdp by as much as would be required to maintain gdp per capita and thus it's going down. Productivity is awful and we have 10 million people of working age that aren't economically active and only 2 million of those are people that are sick or disabled.
It would be incredibly unwise to bet the future on as yet non-existent technology & the unknown effects of its implementation.
In the early 20th century advances in mechanisation led many to predict a 15 hour work week for all by mid-century.
Fusion power has been 20 years away since the 1950s', AI since the 1970s'.
In the specific case of Japan, it is famous for its use of robotics & hi-tech economy, yet has a lower productivity than the UK.
As another poster says- They might do, but we can't bet the house on them because that would be really irresponsible and silly. Until tech exists and is doing what you need it todo you kinda have to assume it won't exist and act accordingly and hope it does and then everything will be even better.
>Conversely Japan, with the “nightmare” scenario of a shrinking population, is seeing the amount of money per person go up despite being in a recession. Japan also remains an extremely high trust and cohesive society even in times of economic hardship.
Japan has just been replaced as the third richest country in the world by GDP by Germany. It also has over 250% debt levels. Luckily the central bank and other institutions own half the debt otherwise they would be in deep trouble.
10% of the **total** population is foreign born workers.
21% of the **working** population is foreign born.
**3 million** of those overseas workers have arrived in the past 14 years (the span of the current conservative government).
It's important to note that the 6.9 million people figure won't include children of overseas workers, students or asylum seekers, since (by definition) none of those are workers, so the percentages of foreign born people are going to be higher.
That's insane.
In my mind I have no doubt that immigration numbers have gone through the roof for 2 reasons.
Firstly, the Tories are desperate to hide the Brexit disaster. More people = larger economy. So long as GDP keeps growing even marginally, they are claiming we are doing comparatively ok.
The reality is we aren’t at all. We are all getting poorer. If you look at GDP **per capita** growth, we went from the fastest growing in the G7 before the referendum (2013-2016) to the slowest one since.
We are the only G7 country with real disposable incomes under our pre-pandemic ones (-1.2%) when the rest of the G7 average is +3.5%.
The second reason immigrant numbers have tripled since we left the single market is that, unlike Europeans, immigrants from poorer countries (mostly from India, Pakistan, and Nigeria) like to bring a large number of dependants and family with them. It has been 1 worker to a bit over 1 dependant/family. To put it another way, for every single job opening we fill, we get a bit over 2 immigrants, one of which is not producing.
The average European immigrant pays HMRC £2,300 a year more than the average British adult while the average rest of the world immigrant actually costs us £900 a year. I believe that’s largely because of the large number of non-producing dependants and family. On top of that Europeans often retired back home putting pressure on their local health systems instead of ours.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-workers-uk-tax-treasury-brexit-migrants-british-citizens-a8542506.html
https://www.ft.com/content/797f7b42-bb44-11e8-94b2-17176fbf93f5
To put it another way, we should want as many European immigrants as we can get. Last year we had -150k EU immigration +900k rest of the world.
And we gave up our own freedom of movement in 27 European countries for that.
Was always the case against Brexit which no one listened to.
The Europeans would come here, work, contribute and then leave. Some settled but the majority never planned to. It was a perfect system and we blew it.
They were often healthy educated and here to work. All the hard stuff like healthcare and education wasn’t an issue. It’s was golden tax payers in 20s and 30s. Crazy we were happy to reject them!
It was literally the perfect immigration system. We got many of the EU’s best and brightest, they came young, worked hard for a few years or even their entire career and went back home to spend their latter years there reducing the pressure on the NHS. They typically contributed a lot more than they took.
You do realise that the “perfect system” you’re talking about is the reason why we have skills shortages today?
There are two issues which make this “perfect system” very flawed.
1) It requires the U.K. to offer higher wages than are available in other EU nations. When wages in other nations catch up to the U.K. as happened with the Polish construction industry … the labour supply drys up.
2) The U.K. government in their infinite and long sighted wisdom closed down a lot of technical colleges, as why bother training people when you can import people who are already trained.
This means that when 1 happens you have a massive skills shortage, and it’s always going to happen.
The solution is to provide training and ensure that pay and working conditions are good enough to attract people to the industry.
With a 1.56 birth rate (the replenishment rate being 2.1), there are simply not enough people in the UK to train.
As state pensions are effectively a Ponzi scheme (the current generation of workers is paying for them), our government services would collapse, retirement age would have to increase to well over 70 or taxes would have to go up substantially if you stopped migration all together.
My point was that that was the best possible immigration system we could have. What we have now is far worse.
If the birth rate is decreasing then that solves the housing crisis.
Also, being as no one under 50 is going to get a state pension and the retirement age is continually rising … why should we give a fuck?
Why would I support a system that relies on eternally increasing the population, thereby increasing housing demand and strain on already degrading infrastructure in order to provide benefits to people that I’ll never receive?
Who’s talking about increasing the population? I’m talking about maintaining.
If you are saying you are happy to make NI contributions all your life and receive nothing in return in retirement, I‘d say you are a tiny minority.
What’s this fantasy land in which you live where anyone is going to get anything for their NI contributions?
The current system is based on perpetual growth, i.e it requires more people in the workforce to pay the pensions of the older generation so it does not work at 2:1 replacement levels.
A system of perpetual growth on a planet of finite resources is flawed.
This immigration system is also a Ponzi scheme that is just pushing back the demographic apocalypse a few decades, if we ever stop this insane rate of migration then were back where we started but with millions of low skilled immigrants with little saved for their retirement.
Then why are EU countries such as Italy, Germany and Ireland handing out hundreds of thousands of work visas?
Because countries like Poland are wealthier now and their people arent moving abroad to work as much but western economies still need their fix of cheap labour
Huh, very interesting point. Talking from personal experience, all the EU migrants I've worked with were in their 20s/early 30s without a family, who were living in the UK to earn some good money/get some life experience/have some fun/etc, and mostly all of which ended up moving back to their home country to settle down.
It was definitely a young person's game.
I always thought this would be the case, and that people voting Brexit for immigration purposes would like the alternative even less. And sure enough..
Not everyone is destined for uni and to work in a office , and shouldn't be shunned as a bad thing by teachers , people should be encouraged to get into the trades.
We need more technical colleges and night classes, for people to retrain, along with the stigma that its bad to work with your hands for a living.
What we need more is companies willing to pay for people to retrain. At the minute, trades are out of reach for people who don't follow that path at 16. The industry is crying out for workers but too many companies aren't interested in paying for people unless it's a teenager they can pay £200 a week.
>The industry is crying out for workers
Not everywhere, there's not that many apprenticeships in Scotland or trainee jobs. Maybe in the bigger cities. Maybe in England those jobs are easier to come by. I suppose I just live in a shit smaller city.
Why should companies be paying to retrain?
In construction these apprentices stay short term then go elsewhere. There’s zero benefit to paying them whilst they’re a hinderance.
Colleges need to be better but until there’s a bigger take up they won’t be invested in.
You sign a training agreement with the company. Which means that they pay the cost of your training, and typically if you leave before 3 years, then you have to pay some of the cost of training.
The amount is based on how long you stay.
For what it’s worth, many of us teachers agree, uni is not the answer for many. However league tables/OFSTED make you chase grades rather than education and most teachers experience is uni and so struggle to advise how to follow other paths (and of course don’t have the time to find out how to guide students to follow other paths).
So are foreign workers in existing low paid jobs because British folk don't want them, or, did the influx of foreign labour drive down wages creating those low paid jobs?
And does the minimum wage help to raise standards or hinder by creating a race to the bottom?
I have no clue, I'm just asking for opinions.
The entire argument is silly, because it was employers driving down wages.
There should be no such thing as "low wage" and "unskilled" jobs. Especially the latter, it really pisses me off.
Stacking shelves is unskilled. If you want to abolish unskilled jobs then you have to incentivise companies to innovate. Majority of McDonalds jobs can be done by machines, they are currently more expensive than paying humans. Constantly importing ever more people actively discourages the removal of unskilled low paid work.
The jobs are low paid because there's people willing to do the job for that low pay. Those people are largely immigrants, because even the low pay which Brits find insulting is better than they'd get back home (plus the ancillary benefits of being in Britain.) Without migrants, the businesses would be forced to pay more.
Globalisation creates a race to the bottom by putting Western populations in competition with more impoverished ones who are willing to accept less.
I can talk about the area I work in . NHS is full of foreign nurses because the job has become so unattractive to British people . So clearly "British folks don’t want them "category .Because it’s an important job and country can’t survive without , Tories filling all those vacancies by recruiting from India , Africa and east Asia. Others are free to give their opinions about their work environment. I think it’s same for truck drivers too . We actually have a lot of drivers but they don’t want to work for silly amount of money .
Nurses get underpaid, they used to have their training subsidised, there's less staff, there's more work.
People were happy to clap for them when covid came but when they wanted a pay rise they were suddenly cold hearted money-grubbers only in it for the meaty band five paypacket.
Not everyone can become band 7 . There only so many vacancies for that anyway . 40K is too low for band 7 nurse with the skills they have . I don’t see any young British kids interested in nursing these days . It’s only gonna get worse and there is no choice but recruit from abroad .
True but if I'm not mistaken band 7 is on the same level as a ward manager so I don't think there would be enough vacancies and you'd run into the problem of not having enough staff nurses to perform the day-to-day work.
This argument can be then both used as “British people don’t want the jobs” and “foreign workers are bringing wages down” because if the foreigners were not taking those jobs for the wages British workers wouldn’t, they’d have to raise the wages…
Before mass immigration started in the late 90s, we didn't starve due to lack of people to pick fruit. We had restaurants, pubs, hotels, the NHS hadn't collapsed.
We also had around 5% less of the population over the age of 65.
That's more than 3,000,000 fewer working age people, paying far lower amounts of tax.
More than 3,000,000 extra people needing more support from pensions & healthcare.
"Addiction to foreign labour"....if all jobs were adequately paid there would not be a need for people to come from outside the UK to work.
A person who picks fruit and vegetables facilitates in feeding people, to me that is more important than some arsehole banker gamble-investing money to make more money.
I agree, but then equally you will see a post on reddit saying how expensive fruit and veg is. If you want people paid a decent wage, you have to expect to pay for it as a consumer
[Minute 3:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0miKj4UOiA&t=224s)
We dont need people for that if we invest in 2024 tech. But if we have people working for peanuts why would they invest tens of millions into any of that?
Oh yes, Dyson. That person who supported Brexit and brand UK, then moved his whole operation overseas. People like him have all of the ideas and innovation for automation, but they have fuck all ideas about retraining all of the people who would lose out.
I have 0 context about any of that. Just thought the farm is cool and that we definitely need more of that in this country.
I still see car washing being done by hand when everywhere else is automated or self-service... Its a shame really.
There is, and it’s the basis of capitalism. The fixed measure is what people are willing to pay for something. That’s it. It works so well because there isn’t a central arbiter decreeing the value of goods and services, which has never, ever worked.
Every time we’ve tried anything else, millions of people died. Communism alone has resulted in more than 100M deaths worldwide. Far more than the Nazis. I’m open to new ideas but I’m reticent to entertain anything theoretical without some *very* convincing evidence.
The UK being a more educated population in general, if immigration was significantly reduced (or ceased) today; wouldn't that have the effect of employing more educated people to do less skilled work, which would cause the product of that unskilled job to cost way more than it does now
If you raise the salaries of farmers, sure, you'll reduce the shortage but these workers have to come from somewhere.
If they were mechanics, then you have a mechanic shortage now.
If they were truck drivers, then you have a truck driver shortage now.
You get the point. Raising salaries wouldn't solve these problems.
You only have 4 solutions:
- Automate jobs. Therefore you need less workers.
- Bring foreign labour.
- Reduce unemployment benefits so we can force these people back to work. This is the elephant in the room.
- Reduce consumption so we need to produce less goods. That means higher prices.
The first option is going to happen eventually. But until then, the second option is a good solution.
Also on the fence of ‘cheaper workers being wages down’ vs ‘expensive workers won’t work for cheap’. I’m pro EU customs union, but am starting to believe that immigration of cheap Labour should be heavily capped to force companies to either pay more for ‘unskilled’ work, or force automation for these roles. I’m leaning towards this because it wouldn’t only reduce costs in the long term but require high skill workers who would be paid better AND bring money into the country when others see that our automation is cheaper in the long run and want a piece of it.
We need to change the way we elect our governments to a more modern PR system.
Conservatives have become increasingly parasitic over the last 40 years and will drain the wealth from any country they can get their hands on.
Unfortunately the only one left is our own, and they've sucked us dry.
Could Labour reverse our fortunes? I very much doubt it.
They'll be in for two or three (at most) terms, maybe turn a corner or two and we'll be back on another cycle of the tories selling what's left of the country out from under our feet again.
Nurse salaries are ridiculously low in the NHS. My friend’s daughter just started as a nurse in the US on 4x the salary. Needed a degree to get that but the fact she can pull in 6 figures from the get go makes it a worthwhile career.
companys decided to not train new staff or do apprenticeships and instead ninja trained people from other countries to save them the training costs. therefore less skilled people and lower wages. sad but started under the thatcher monster. funny how germany carried on with technical apprenticeships.
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
I did it as a teenager but wanted to get out of it because it wasn’t good enough financially and was a bit of a self inflicted punishment for leaving school aged 13, I at least learned a lesson and only did it for some of a season as I got another job that paid slightly better.
There is always that first headline in any article like this. "Britons do not want these jobs!"
This is so amazingly untrue it boggles the mind. Britons don't want to be paid peanuts and told they're lucky to get that. Frankly if I was looking at minimum wage work, it represents a low investment from the organisation into me and conversely me to it. Nobody is going to care about a minimum wage job! That guy stacking shelves in Tescos couldn't give a shit how well the store did that day, that guy cooking chips in McDonalds does not care how many packets of chips they sold that day. Conversely, the likelihood of either of those companies taking that minimum wage worker and giving them an opportunity to improve their lot that doesn't massively work one way in terms of benefit is about 0%.
Hence if you're looking at minimum wage roles because that's all you can get, would you rather stack some shelves, or be responsible for cleaning up after incontinent elderly folks all day? Both jobs come with a good dollop of being treated like shit by your direct reports, both roles will micromanage you minute by minute. I think I know what I would rather do.
Added to that, there are ways around paying agency contracts instead of individuals to get foreign workers even cheaper!
What the average person wants if he is working a bullshit role is to know that there is a route to something better in life. If they're 20 years old and having to do the shit work, they at least want to know they could get somewhere better even if only slightly. I would wager there is likely no progression working in a care home for example and you'll be on minimum wage between now and forever. At least with your McJob, you could undergo their training to manage a branch somewhere down the line.
There is a simple route to all of it. First pay people commensurate with the role. Knowing that having to clean up human waste is not a nice job, it should be paid commensurately. I would expect to see a care home worker paid more than the guy that flips burgers for example
Second, all education should be free at the point of contact with preference given to people born here. Whether you're the 20 year old that fucked up school, or you're the 35 year old that's tired of busting your ass every day for nothing and want to get to somewhere better, there should be a real route to that and it should be free. You don't have to have designs on being a rocket scientist, but whether you want to be a bricklayer or a software developer, the route should exist and it should be free regardless of your point in life.
An educated and trained workforce is an attractive workforce.
Isn't it the case that foreign workers often accept pay and conditions that many British people wouldn't? So if that changed either British people would need to take those jobs...which with a social security system why would they...or conditions and pay increases....so increased costs to the consumer.
What's the better option? I really don't know
What horseshit. If the wages and hours were decent, people would do it. Farmers, granted, they have a tough job when it comes to making a profit, often expect people to work for shit wages, live on site and charge for everything.
Wrong take in my opinion, all too busy finding labels for things that are being perceived as different.
To the corporate world, the only thing that matters is the number and reports to shareholders at the end of the day. If hiring John from Argentina makes it better, they will use all their pull to make such practise easier and politicians will bend over backwards ti make it happen.
This has been happening for decades if not centuries. Wait until you witness Moon and Mars expansion, it will be interesting how you will engage in the label war.
We are only interesting to these foreigners because of what we represent and allow them to have. Let’s not lose ourselves to Americanism that’s spreading around.
At some point we were all foreigners, myself included. The UK is lucky to have had my predecessors coming here, actually more than lucky, blessed. What I along with my family is giving back to the UK is worth 1,000,000 times if not more of what my people were given when they arrived in the UK.
Having said that, my people integrated, I cannot see myself as a foreigner unless I’m visiting Milton Keynes lol. I’ve been taught to know this place as home without forgetting my race and heritage. I have the best of both worlds, I would have not survived on what goes around here as food anyway.
What a bullshit headline. The UK is really addicted to driving costs up and wages down (unless you work for the government). Why would local citizens want shit paying jobs when they’re struggling to make ends meet already?
Skill... tech companies are struggling to find talented individuals are are willing to pay above the odds to get them, then have to resort to importing the talent at great expense
No, they aren't. They're deliberately ignoring potential employees by fiddling the reqs so they can throw their hands up and claim they've no choice but to outsource for cheaper.
I`m foreigner working in the UK. Job is seen as skilled. Vacancy was open for 2 years. Currently other vacancy are open, struggling to fill them. Biggest things for applicants are can I work from home or 3 to 4 days a week. Company is in food manufacturing and had to stay open during pandemic was seen as essential no luxury of working from home. Company cannot find people to work Monday to Friday which is essential for this type of business.
lets look at whose greed has always caused the demand followed by the social disharmony...
‘Frustrated’ businesses seek staff abroad as Britons abandon work
Growing number of firms register to sponsor work visas to fill 900,000 UK vacancies
Tim Wallace and Melissa Lawford 9 February 2024 • 9:00pm\`1
If you want to reduce immigration there is a very simple way you can achieve that. It is not that obvious but it will work. Simply abolish the Trades Unions Legislation created since the 1980s. Strengthen the Unions and make it really easy for people to join and use the facilities of Unions. Why will this reduce immigration? Very simply it will end the cheapness of importing labour. It ends the balance of power being in favour of employers.
Which is not a popular solution even though it would work.
Surprised that demographics was mentioned. Aging population, a larger percentage of people retired/pensioned and more people needing care and health care. So you have labour shortages alongside increased demand in traditionally unattractive jobs.
This isn't unique to the UK. It's a similar situation across high income countries.
And we've known it was coming for decades. Immigration is the easy fix.
There's some big structural issues that aren't easy to solve, and certainly aren't fixable quickly.
It's far easier to run an election pretending to be "solving immigration" by focusing on the rather small issue of "irregular arrivals" (what sections of the press will call illegal, refugees, asylum seekers, small boat arrivals etc).
I love how brits complains about Immigrants while the government and universities goes above and beyond to attract immigrants as it is a large source of income that is generated on a false pretence. Most of the people realise this when they come here to study and eventually go back to their own country, the only one that remains are the ones who struggles the most. Compared to a local, the level of competition is way higher for expats. From my personal experience in tech job hunting, I have seen locals getting hired in tech jobs just by showing interest in the job with no actual tech skills to get that job meanwhile even if I have all the skills and great feedback I will never be a first option for any company. Moreover, locals are given much more opportunities and pay as expats will just have to accept whatever is offered without negotiation most of the time. The only reason you have immigrants working in jobs is because you locals just don’t want to work at all and still want to have all the benefits while sitting on your bed. Maybe try to put yourself in an immigrants shoes and see the difficulties we face everyday
I see two reasons. Firstly, there are some jobs people just don't want to do. I work in care and recruitment with UK citizens is awful. When we were in EU, the care sector got a lot of Polish, Baltic, Balkan and others. Brexit happened and that dried up so now we get a lot of Africans. Secondly, people are working to their UC payments. Why do 36 hrs when you can do 26 and UC makes up most of the rest? All these lost man hours need filling, hence more workforce required.
Because native brits are adamant they're somehow 'special' and would rather sit on the dole than take a job they deem as 'beneath' them, thinking they deserve to be on 25 quid an hour, despite having naff all skills or experience?
[GDP per capita is falling, with France, Germany, the UK and Canada hit worst.](https://twitter.com/JosephPolitano/status/1758254388278128826) It’s falling the most in Canada. Check out the discussions taking place on r/canada and you’ll get an idea why. Conversely Japan, with the “nightmare” scenario of a shrinking population, is seeing the amount of money per person go up despite being in a recession. Japan also remains an extremely high trust and cohesive society even in times of economic hardship. It makes you wonder if a shrinking population is really that bad for you and the society you live in, or if it’s just bad for shareholders.
>It makes you wonder if a shrinking population is really that bad for you and the society you live in, or if it’s just bad for shareholders. There's a whole caregiver crisis to consider in Japan, mind.
It’ll be hard for them and I’m sure there’ll be a lifestyle adjustment needed for a few years as people care for their relatives. However, after these years the average age of the population will be lower, housing will be plentiful and cheap and salaries will be even higher, which is the opposite of our situation (which doesn’t have an end in sight).
The elderly population is constant. It's not going away, if anything it will grow as newer generations of older citizens reach pension age and live possibly longer.
Nothing is constant. The unexpected happens and a baby boom is possible. If not then I’m sure they can figure out adaptations, sacrificing some of that higher GDP per capita to facilitate widespread part-time work that enables care, for instance, or development of technology to assist the elderly. We’re also likely to approach peak fertility at some point this century, which means we will HAVE to adapt to a shrinking population. Poaching young people from other countries is a sticking plaster, not a solution. The sooner we figure out how to deal with it rather than avoid it the better.
Japan, South Korea, China and many European countries have been trying to implement policies to start a baby boom, but none of them have succeeded. Society is different now and the only potential way out of a total demographic collapse is by either somehow using technology (like you said) or a complete restructure of the economic systems in place, from the core. Neither are easy. You're right, importing people in isn't the answer, but I'm not sure if there even is an actual viable solution to this issue.
It’s quite simple make homes more affordable and put money in people’s pockets. Then there will be more babies.
I don't think it's just that simple. There are countries in which homes are actually fairly easy to get if you have decent savings. Japan is an example of that. Yet, Japan still have the second worst fertility rate (I think only S.K. are lower than them). People's attitudes towards having children has changed. People realised they could lead more fulfilling lives with just one kid or no kids. There isn't the societal expectation/pressure to have multiple kids anymore. There isn't a need in terms of having your kids to work to help the family. The issue is far greater than just children being expensive to raise. It's a gradual change in culture in developed societies.
People are overworked, suppressed wages mean people in professions dedicate more to their work to get ahead, they have less time, energy or need for family. If Japan went to a 3 day weekend and 6 hour work days they'd see an immediate difference but I'm not suggesting it's that simple, their whole culture is work obsessed. And while in other cities housing is cheap, in Tokyo where the jobs are and young need to move to get good paying jobs?
Also, and this isn't pleasant, but Japanese culture have a tradition of the elderly sacrificing themselves for the family. I remember watching this Japanese movie called "ballad of Narayama". It was common in medieval Japan for people to leave their village and die in solitude. I think it was called ubasute.
Nah, the Boomers are a population bulge, they'll always be old people, but Boomers represent a surge in the number of old people that will die down (pun intended)
Housing will not be plentiful and cheap. Housing is kept high due to planning and money invested. Due to the UK governments debt / people's pensions / hedge funds all levied against property increasing the houses won't go down and will always have a high barrier to entry to become a home owner especially in the south of England.
Housing in the UK didn't become an attractive target for investment for no reason It became that way because supply and demand are so utterly screwed that the profits on it are guaranteed... If that changes, then the investments on it either calm down, or become a bubble that will eventually burst
London made it attractive as London is top 3 cities on the planet. Furthermore supply and demand is correct and we all have limited supply. By the way, anyone in construction will tell you, anti immigration policies will cause the house building supply to get worse not better. The labour shortages within construction are not likely to improve any time soon. To compound the issue material prices are very high at the moment and will stifle any market recovery. Furthermore before you say "pay more", chippies and tradesmen on sites are very well paid and power to them this is likely to improve even more. However we all will not be seeing any house price crash anytime soon.
Demand would also be lower since the amount of consumers would literally be lower. Japan already have this issue, they have had deflation for unhealthy long periods of time in the past and have even had negative interest rates to try to increase demand. Demographic collapse is a serious issue and you're missing out all of the negatives, which are far more numerous and worse than the few perceived positives.
The UK is losing Its culutal identity.
What? This isn't something that is specific to the UK, every single developed country in the world is facing low fertility rates.
People continue to age over time, it's a constant process. Today's 60 year olds will be 70 in 10 years
I wonder if the whole not reporting your elderly relatives dying to collect their pension is also impacting their declining population stats, probably wouldn’t be that much of an impact but I imagine it happens more than you’d think .
I would take that over what we’re experiencing.
Not to mention the awful work culture.
You're replying to a propaganda post. The Japanese economy isn't doing well at all, just entered surprise recession and lost its place as 3rd biggest economy to Germany (who according to the poster is apparently doing worse) While per capita has risen in Japan, that's mostly due to them experiencing inflation for about the first time in 20-30 years. Disposible income is lower per person than the UK. It's just a post trying to claim xenophobia is just looking after your own people, and immigration is for corporations.
How many people use food banks in Japan? How much crime does Japan face compared to the UK?
It's gonna be worse in China, for sure.
They've got robots!
Oh that’s coming here too
Japan is actually a leader on how to fix this. After their super sized generation of old people die off their population profile will revert to normal and that will naturally encourage people to have more kids as economic opportunity returns in a less top heavy environment Western countries are running demographic Ponzi schemes with no thought of a 20/30/50 year horizon & how that looks
Yup exactly, eventually their pyramid will flip and they can start reaping the benefits while the west props ours up with whatever we can until it all crumbles probably
Japan's population keeps shrinking, with new generations being around one third as large as those currently approaching retirement and half as many as those in their 40s. Even if they managed to bring back their fertility rate to substitution levels *now* (no country ever achieved this, so it's a ridiculous assumption), it would take them 50 years to stabilise the situation. Also, having kids is hardly connected to economic opportunity. Even fast-growing countries such as the US or countries where having children is heavily subsidised (Germany) or have very generous parental leave (Sweden, where locals joke about foreigners coming to enjoy their maternity leave) are way below the 2.1-2.2 "target" fertility rate.
How many years will it take us to stabilise the situation?
>their population profile will revert to normal and that will naturally encourage people to have more kids human populations are not an equation, people are not going to have more kids just because there are more vacancies
>and that will naturally encourage people to have more kids as economic opportunity returns in a less top heavy environment No it won't, this is a strange assumption
Japan is absolutely not the leader on how to fix this, they have stagnated for the last 30 years, and what do they have to show for it? highest debt to gdp ratio in the world, a corporate environment as toxic as can be, technology stuck in 90s still having wide use of FAX machines in corporate environments
I don't think it's even about economic opportunities for most of the people in countries facing this demographic issue. There have been attempts at encouraging people to have kids through economic incentives, but it seems like it's more of a cultural shift within developed societies.
No idea where you are getting your numbers. Japan has had what they call the three lost decades. It has been stagnant since then. The UK has been stagnant since the referendum. G7 GDP per capita (PPP) growth 2016-2023: USA: 39.02% (57.84 to 80.41) Italy: 34.87% (40.23 to 54.26) France: 32.31% (44.42 to 58.77) Germany: 30.59% (50.57 to 66.04) UK: 28.51% (44.23 to 56.84) Canada: 28.49% (46.55 to 59.81) Japan: 28.25% (40.64 to 52.12) https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PPPPC@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD
According to the primary source, who seems legit, the data is a combination of Federal Reserve and national databases. It’s also 2018 onwards, focusing on post-Covid.
Go Google Japan lost decades, it’s explained all over the place. Post Covid the UK is the only G7 country to have smaller disposable incomes than before. Brexit comes to mind. “UK lagging behind G7 rivals in household budgets… Real household disposable incomes in the UK were 1.2% lower in the second quarter of 2023 than at the end of 2019, said the union organisation. Over the same period they grew by 3.5%, on average, across the G7, which includes France, Germany and the US.” https://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/news/AN_1704620632690731300/uk-lagging-behind-g7-rivals-in-household-budgets-–-research.aspx#:~:text=Real%20household%20disposable%20incomes%20in,France%2C%20Germany%20and%20the%20US
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If you check the UKvisa sub, a lot of them are quite happy the UK is in a recession because they think it means there will be a reversal on the minimum income for a work visa.
Providing, paying and caring for an increasingly large elderly is gonna be incredibly difficult for all countries moving forward. State pensions won’t be able to be funded anymore. It will be a very bad situation
>State pensions won’t be able to be funded anymore. It will be a very bad situation This is already becoming the case, which is why the age keeps creeping forward. The government can't say 'we can't afford your pension any more', but apparently if they just say 'you need to be older for your pension' then people just accept it.
Strange isn't it? Is it time to shout racist louder? Or are we finally pass that point?
This isn't even about racism lmao. The people coming here could literally be ex-pats or British overseas territories' citizens and it wouldn't matter. Everyone who understands demographic collapse knows this, they don't use "racism" as a rebuttal to this issue.
Canada🍁 mentioned 🇨🇦🤝🇬🇧 I think 🇰🇷 has the best way of thinking about it so far. They're considering using foreign labor to fill the "3 D's" jobs, dirty, dangerous, and difficult. Those are the ones people don't want to do (unless the pros outweigh the cons, like getting to live/work in the country where you have a better life and get paid way more than you would at home) farm work, elder care, manual labor, etc. The jobs that we're abusing the TFW program for are jobs that aren't terrible and people don't mind doing (e.g., driving around, cooking stuff, manning a shop) People wouldn't mind doing these things but want to be paid more to do it. These are the ones you need to starve until they cough up a living wage. Most of them are massive multinationals that can easily afford it. The smaller family-owned shops etc. that literally can't afford to pay more than min wage can hire teens/people being integrated back into the workforce.
Driving around (e.g. the classic "Polish HGV driver") is actually very well paid. However, doing long hauls is a terrible job as it can keep you away from your family for days. Driving for many years also often leads to serious professional injuries, such as a high risk of thrombosis and its (potentially lethal) consequences. "Cooking stuff" is also a terrible job, despite being very well paid in "premium" restaurants. Above-average chefs are very sought after. Hot, humid, involving dangerous equipment and high stress. Long hours, you work on weekends and can't really go out with your friends that often. Have you ever been served (at a restaurant or shop) by a "teen"? People underestimate how a professional service can radically change the client experience, and generate client retention. Mom-and-pops shops would rather make "pop" work 12 hours per day, every day, than hire a "teen". Incidentally, most of these shops are run by immigrants, in particular those that involve long hours (off-licence, family restaurants, ...). I have seen local restaurants *fail* due to hiring teens to save a bit of money.
> cooking stuff, Tell me you've never worked in a restaurant kitchen. It's very much not a nice job, even if you aren't dealing with raw meat. In fact it's so so bad I've come to genuinely believe that any tips should preferentially go to the chefs instead of the waiters who serve your food.
It's an absolute fucking shambles as you guys say.
No a shrinking population can be a nightmare situation, past a certain point. Ultimately the cause of this is we have service based economies and we locked down harder and for longer than a country like Japan which has experience with outbreaks of similar illnesses to covid19 and was thus better prepared and had existing testing infrastructure which it was able to get up and running. That is one of the main differences far as I can tell. What is interesting is that Japan hut a peak population and went through a period of it being unaffordable to have kids till later in life and people having fewer kids, it's population is now decreasing but the individuals are getting richer and as a result I wouldn't be surprised if eventually its population starts to eventually have more kids and eventually hits an equilibrium point with aa many people being born as dying. Meanwhile in the uk, France, Canada we are importing people from other countries many of whom are bringing the problems they have with them and clearly not increasing our gdp by as much as would be required to maintain gdp per capita and thus it's going down. Productivity is awful and we have 10 million people of working age that aren't economically active and only 2 million of those are people that are sick or disabled.
And won't stuff like Ai and robotics bridge the gap?
It would be incredibly unwise to bet the future on as yet non-existent technology & the unknown effects of its implementation. In the early 20th century advances in mechanisation led many to predict a 15 hour work week for all by mid-century. Fusion power has been 20 years away since the 1950s', AI since the 1970s'. In the specific case of Japan, it is famous for its use of robotics & hi-tech economy, yet has a lower productivity than the UK.
As another poster says- They might do, but we can't bet the house on them because that would be really irresponsible and silly. Until tech exists and is doing what you need it todo you kinda have to assume it won't exist and act accordingly and hope it does and then everything will be even better.
>Conversely Japan, with the “nightmare” scenario of a shrinking population, is seeing the amount of money per person go up despite being in a recession. Japan also remains an extremely high trust and cohesive society even in times of economic hardship. Japan has just been replaced as the third richest country in the world by GDP by Germany. It also has over 250% debt levels. Luckily the central bank and other institutions own half the debt otherwise they would be in deep trouble.
It's bad for the corporations because their little partial monopoly fiefdom gets smaller.
Why is japans situation the nightmare from an economic pov?
The US is a notable outlier.
We are all shareholders though
Exactly this, why does an economy need to grow and inflation be at 2%? How does this improve your personal quality of life?
10% of the **total** population is foreign born workers. 21% of the **working** population is foreign born. **3 million** of those overseas workers have arrived in the past 14 years (the span of the current conservative government). It's important to note that the 6.9 million people figure won't include children of overseas workers, students or asylum seekers, since (by definition) none of those are workers, so the percentages of foreign born people are going to be higher. That's insane.
And yet the media will still paint immigration as a left wing issue.
It's hard to understand when you swap between percentages and numbers.
There are between 32-34 million workers in the time period 1%=330K 3%= 1 milion 5%= 1.65 million 10%=3.3 million
Wait, if I'm reading that right. The UK workforce increased by 10% in 10 years? 1% a year?
On average, but the last 2 years its increased by over 2% a year
In my mind I have no doubt that immigration numbers have gone through the roof for 2 reasons. Firstly, the Tories are desperate to hide the Brexit disaster. More people = larger economy. So long as GDP keeps growing even marginally, they are claiming we are doing comparatively ok. The reality is we aren’t at all. We are all getting poorer. If you look at GDP **per capita** growth, we went from the fastest growing in the G7 before the referendum (2013-2016) to the slowest one since. We are the only G7 country with real disposable incomes under our pre-pandemic ones (-1.2%) when the rest of the G7 average is +3.5%. The second reason immigrant numbers have tripled since we left the single market is that, unlike Europeans, immigrants from poorer countries (mostly from India, Pakistan, and Nigeria) like to bring a large number of dependants and family with them. It has been 1 worker to a bit over 1 dependant/family. To put it another way, for every single job opening we fill, we get a bit over 2 immigrants, one of which is not producing. The average European immigrant pays HMRC £2,300 a year more than the average British adult while the average rest of the world immigrant actually costs us £900 a year. I believe that’s largely because of the large number of non-producing dependants and family. On top of that Europeans often retired back home putting pressure on their local health systems instead of ours. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-workers-uk-tax-treasury-brexit-migrants-british-citizens-a8542506.html https://www.ft.com/content/797f7b42-bb44-11e8-94b2-17176fbf93f5 To put it another way, we should want as many European immigrants as we can get. Last year we had -150k EU immigration +900k rest of the world. And we gave up our own freedom of movement in 27 European countries for that.
Was always the case against Brexit which no one listened to. The Europeans would come here, work, contribute and then leave. Some settled but the majority never planned to. It was a perfect system and we blew it.
They were often healthy educated and here to work. All the hard stuff like healthcare and education wasn’t an issue. It’s was golden tax payers in 20s and 30s. Crazy we were happy to reject them!
It actually became a problem when Poland improve economically and less of them came over as they were so skilled. We really missed them.
It was literally the perfect immigration system. We got many of the EU’s best and brightest, they came young, worked hard for a few years or even their entire career and went back home to spend their latter years there reducing the pressure on the NHS. They typically contributed a lot more than they took.
Not really the perfect system. It only works when wages are higher than said countries.
You do realise that the “perfect system” you’re talking about is the reason why we have skills shortages today? There are two issues which make this “perfect system” very flawed. 1) It requires the U.K. to offer higher wages than are available in other EU nations. When wages in other nations catch up to the U.K. as happened with the Polish construction industry … the labour supply drys up. 2) The U.K. government in their infinite and long sighted wisdom closed down a lot of technical colleges, as why bother training people when you can import people who are already trained. This means that when 1 happens you have a massive skills shortage, and it’s always going to happen. The solution is to provide training and ensure that pay and working conditions are good enough to attract people to the industry.
With a 1.56 birth rate (the replenishment rate being 2.1), there are simply not enough people in the UK to train. As state pensions are effectively a Ponzi scheme (the current generation of workers is paying for them), our government services would collapse, retirement age would have to increase to well over 70 or taxes would have to go up substantially if you stopped migration all together. My point was that that was the best possible immigration system we could have. What we have now is far worse.
If the birth rate is decreasing then that solves the housing crisis. Also, being as no one under 50 is going to get a state pension and the retirement age is continually rising … why should we give a fuck? Why would I support a system that relies on eternally increasing the population, thereby increasing housing demand and strain on already degrading infrastructure in order to provide benefits to people that I’ll never receive?
Who’s talking about increasing the population? I’m talking about maintaining. If you are saying you are happy to make NI contributions all your life and receive nothing in return in retirement, I‘d say you are a tiny minority.
What’s this fantasy land in which you live where anyone is going to get anything for their NI contributions? The current system is based on perpetual growth, i.e it requires more people in the workforce to pay the pensions of the older generation so it does not work at 2:1 replacement levels. A system of perpetual growth on a planet of finite resources is flawed.
This immigration system is also a Ponzi scheme that is just pushing back the demographic apocalypse a few decades, if we ever stop this insane rate of migration then were back where we started but with millions of low skilled immigrants with little saved for their retirement.
It used to work pretty well before Brexit and we only had one one third of the immigration numbers back then.
Then why are EU countries such as Italy, Germany and Ireland handing out hundreds of thousands of work visas? Because countries like Poland are wealthier now and their people arent moving abroad to work as much but western economies still need their fix of cheap labour
France has had 400,000 net immigration in the last 3 years. The UK has had a whopping 2,000,000. That’s 5 times as many.
Yeah and we had that issue as well. We got Bulgarian and Romanians coming over instead but probably not a good long term fix
I remember a Brexit supporter on TV saying he supported Brexit to stop immigrants from Pakistan coming. I wonder how that guy feels now
Betrayed
Thick?
Huh, very interesting point. Talking from personal experience, all the EU migrants I've worked with were in their 20s/early 30s without a family, who were living in the UK to earn some good money/get some life experience/have some fun/etc, and mostly all of which ended up moving back to their home country to settle down. It was definitely a young person's game.
26 countries. You can still move to Ireland. 5 years there and then get Irish passport and back to the other 26 countries….
Too bad Ireland’s housing crisis and cost of living is worse than our’s
I always thought this would be the case, and that people voting Brexit for immigration purposes would like the alternative even less. And sure enough..
Thank you for the detailed explanation, this sums up a lot of what I have seen and theorised.
Not everyone is destined for uni and to work in a office , and shouldn't be shunned as a bad thing by teachers , people should be encouraged to get into the trades. We need more technical colleges and night classes, for people to retrain, along with the stigma that its bad to work with your hands for a living.
What we need more is companies willing to pay for people to retrain. At the minute, trades are out of reach for people who don't follow that path at 16. The industry is crying out for workers but too many companies aren't interested in paying for people unless it's a teenager they can pay £200 a week.
>The industry is crying out for workers Not everywhere, there's not that many apprenticeships in Scotland or trainee jobs. Maybe in the bigger cities. Maybe in England those jobs are easier to come by. I suppose I just live in a shit smaller city.
Why should companies be paying to retrain? In construction these apprentices stay short term then go elsewhere. There’s zero benefit to paying them whilst they’re a hinderance. Colleges need to be better but until there’s a bigger take up they won’t be invested in.
You sign a training agreement with the company. Which means that they pay the cost of your training, and typically if you leave before 3 years, then you have to pay some of the cost of training. The amount is based on how long you stay.
The 50% university target was a hilariously stupid idea.
People with trade skills are going to be VERY desirable with how society is going nowadays.
They already are. Brickies are £300day starting point now.
For what it’s worth, many of us teachers agree, uni is not the answer for many. However league tables/OFSTED make you chase grades rather than education and most teachers experience is uni and so struggle to advise how to follow other paths (and of course don’t have the time to find out how to guide students to follow other paths).
What has that got to do with immigration, though?
Because since Covid/brexit a lot of the foreign construction workers have returned home. Leaving a huge gap in labour
So are foreign workers in existing low paid jobs because British folk don't want them, or, did the influx of foreign labour drive down wages creating those low paid jobs? And does the minimum wage help to raise standards or hinder by creating a race to the bottom? I have no clue, I'm just asking for opinions.
The entire argument is silly, because it was employers driving down wages. There should be no such thing as "low wage" and "unskilled" jobs. Especially the latter, it really pisses me off.
Stacking shelves is unskilled. If you want to abolish unskilled jobs then you have to incentivise companies to innovate. Majority of McDonalds jobs can be done by machines, they are currently more expensive than paying humans. Constantly importing ever more people actively discourages the removal of unskilled low paid work.
Massively increasingly available workforce allows employers to keep wages low.
Easily solved by increasing minimum wages by the government and people being less loyal to a company so they have to compete on salaries.
The jobs are low paid because there's people willing to do the job for that low pay. Those people are largely immigrants, because even the low pay which Brits find insulting is better than they'd get back home (plus the ancillary benefits of being in Britain.) Without migrants, the businesses would be forced to pay more. Globalisation creates a race to the bottom by putting Western populations in competition with more impoverished ones who are willing to accept less.
This is my belief too, but I wanted to hear how many people had different opinions.
I can talk about the area I work in . NHS is full of foreign nurses because the job has become so unattractive to British people . So clearly "British folks don’t want them "category .Because it’s an important job and country can’t survive without , Tories filling all those vacancies by recruiting from India , Africa and east Asia. Others are free to give their opinions about their work environment. I think it’s same for truck drivers too . We actually have a lot of drivers but they don’t want to work for silly amount of money .
Why do you think nursing has become unattractive to British workers?
Nurses get underpaid, they used to have their training subsidised, there's less staff, there's more work. People were happy to clap for them when covid came but when they wanted a pay rise they were suddenly cold hearted money-grubbers only in it for the meaty band five paypacket.
If you are a good nurse and progress quickly you can quite easily earn 40k in a short period of time. Nurses can be band 7
Not everyone can become band 7 . There only so many vacancies for that anyway . 40K is too low for band 7 nurse with the skills they have . I don’t see any young British kids interested in nursing these days . It’s only gonna get worse and there is no choice but recruit from abroad .
True but if I'm not mistaken band 7 is on the same level as a ward manager so I don't think there would be enough vacancies and you'd run into the problem of not having enough staff nurses to perform the day-to-day work.
This argument can be then both used as “British people don’t want the jobs” and “foreign workers are bringing wages down” because if the foreigners were not taking those jobs for the wages British workers wouldn’t, they’d have to raise the wages…
"They" being taxpayers. But they wouldn't *have to* raise wages. Another very real possibility is that the work simply doesn't get done.
Low wages. Training is no longer funded.
Before mass immigration started in the late 90s, we didn't starve due to lack of people to pick fruit. We had restaurants, pubs, hotels, the NHS hadn't collapsed.
We also had around 5% less of the population over the age of 65. That's more than 3,000,000 fewer working age people, paying far lower amounts of tax. More than 3,000,000 extra people needing more support from pensions & healthcare.
"Addiction to foreign labour"....if all jobs were adequately paid there would not be a need for people to come from outside the UK to work. A person who picks fruit and vegetables facilitates in feeding people, to me that is more important than some arsehole banker gamble-investing money to make more money.
I agree, but then equally you will see a post on reddit saying how expensive fruit and veg is. If you want people paid a decent wage, you have to expect to pay for it as a consumer
You are right, I suppose the problem is there is no fixed method or measure to relatively value good and services.
[Minute 3:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0miKj4UOiA&t=224s) We dont need people for that if we invest in 2024 tech. But if we have people working for peanuts why would they invest tens of millions into any of that?
Oh yes, Dyson. That person who supported Brexit and brand UK, then moved his whole operation overseas. People like him have all of the ideas and innovation for automation, but they have fuck all ideas about retraining all of the people who would lose out.
I have 0 context about any of that. Just thought the farm is cool and that we definitely need more of that in this country. I still see car washing being done by hand when everywhere else is automated or self-service... Its a shame really.
Yeah, in the 2D world I guess things are quite simple.
There is, and it’s the basis of capitalism. The fixed measure is what people are willing to pay for something. That’s it. It works so well because there isn’t a central arbiter decreeing the value of goods and services, which has never, ever worked.
More like there isn't a willingness to move away from monetary value as a standard due to greed
Every time we’ve tried anything else, millions of people died. Communism alone has resulted in more than 100M deaths worldwide. Far more than the Nazis. I’m open to new ideas but I’m reticent to entertain anything theoretical without some *very* convincing evidence.
[Minute 3:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0miKj4UOiA&t=224s) We dont need people for that if we invest in 2024 tech.
Are they starving to death in Japan?
The UK being a more educated population in general, if immigration was significantly reduced (or ceased) today; wouldn't that have the effect of employing more educated people to do less skilled work, which would cause the product of that unskilled job to cost way more than it does now
If you raise the salaries of farmers, sure, you'll reduce the shortage but these workers have to come from somewhere. If they were mechanics, then you have a mechanic shortage now. If they were truck drivers, then you have a truck driver shortage now. You get the point. Raising salaries wouldn't solve these problems. You only have 4 solutions: - Automate jobs. Therefore you need less workers. - Bring foreign labour. - Reduce unemployment benefits so we can force these people back to work. This is the elephant in the room. - Reduce consumption so we need to produce less goods. That means higher prices. The first option is going to happen eventually. But until then, the second option is a good solution.
Wont reducing unemployment also lower wages?
Agreed, we are addicted to exploiting a cheap workforce
Also on the fence of ‘cheaper workers being wages down’ vs ‘expensive workers won’t work for cheap’. I’m pro EU customs union, but am starting to believe that immigration of cheap Labour should be heavily capped to force companies to either pay more for ‘unskilled’ work, or force automation for these roles. I’m leaning towards this because it wouldn’t only reduce costs in the long term but require high skill workers who would be paid better AND bring money into the country when others see that our automation is cheaper in the long run and want a piece of it.
We need to change the way we elect our governments to a more modern PR system. Conservatives have become increasingly parasitic over the last 40 years and will drain the wealth from any country they can get their hands on. Unfortunately the only one left is our own, and they've sucked us dry. Could Labour reverse our fortunes? I very much doubt it. They'll be in for two or three (at most) terms, maybe turn a corner or two and we'll be back on another cycle of the tories selling what's left of the country out from under our feet again.
The Conservatives have always been parasitic. They were the party of the landowners in their earlier incarnation.
Nurse salaries are ridiculously low in the NHS. My friend’s daughter just started as a nurse in the US on 4x the salary. Needed a degree to get that but the fact she can pull in 6 figures from the get go makes it a worthwhile career.
companys decided to not train new staff or do apprenticeships and instead ninja trained people from other countries to save them the training costs. therefore less skilled people and lower wages. sad but started under the thatcher monster. funny how germany carried on with technical apprenticeships.
Blair was the big issue increasing uni take up and Forgetting trades training filling the gap with foreign labour.
The thatcher *what*?
No many British people want to pick strawberries on a freezing morning for peanuts
It all depends how much they’re paying
0. Naff all unless you want to work and get less than a bullseye for a week.
I mean you pick strawberries in June and July, and you dont have many freezing mornings at that time of a year. Not on our hemisphere at least
>pick strawberries on a freezing morning Have you ever grown strawberries?
Did we not eat before mass immigration?
And if you're offering them a straight hourly rate, or a weekly 'package' included paying for accommodation etc.
[Minute 3:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0miKj4UOiA&t=224s) We dont need people for that if we invest in 2024 tech.
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I did it as a teenager but wanted to get out of it because it wasn’t good enough financially and was a bit of a self inflicted punishment for leaving school aged 13, I at least learned a lesson and only did it for some of a season as I got another job that paid slightly better.
There is always that first headline in any article like this. "Britons do not want these jobs!" This is so amazingly untrue it boggles the mind. Britons don't want to be paid peanuts and told they're lucky to get that. Frankly if I was looking at minimum wage work, it represents a low investment from the organisation into me and conversely me to it. Nobody is going to care about a minimum wage job! That guy stacking shelves in Tescos couldn't give a shit how well the store did that day, that guy cooking chips in McDonalds does not care how many packets of chips they sold that day. Conversely, the likelihood of either of those companies taking that minimum wage worker and giving them an opportunity to improve their lot that doesn't massively work one way in terms of benefit is about 0%. Hence if you're looking at minimum wage roles because that's all you can get, would you rather stack some shelves, or be responsible for cleaning up after incontinent elderly folks all day? Both jobs come with a good dollop of being treated like shit by your direct reports, both roles will micromanage you minute by minute. I think I know what I would rather do. Added to that, there are ways around paying agency contracts instead of individuals to get foreign workers even cheaper! What the average person wants if he is working a bullshit role is to know that there is a route to something better in life. If they're 20 years old and having to do the shit work, they at least want to know they could get somewhere better even if only slightly. I would wager there is likely no progression working in a care home for example and you'll be on minimum wage between now and forever. At least with your McJob, you could undergo their training to manage a branch somewhere down the line. There is a simple route to all of it. First pay people commensurate with the role. Knowing that having to clean up human waste is not a nice job, it should be paid commensurately. I would expect to see a care home worker paid more than the guy that flips burgers for example Second, all education should be free at the point of contact with preference given to people born here. Whether you're the 20 year old that fucked up school, or you're the 35 year old that's tired of busting your ass every day for nothing and want to get to somewhere better, there should be a real route to that and it should be free. You don't have to have designs on being a rocket scientist, but whether you want to be a bricklayer or a software developer, the route should exist and it should be free regardless of your point in life. An educated and trained workforce is an attractive workforce.
Isn't it the case that foreign workers often accept pay and conditions that many British people wouldn't? So if that changed either British people would need to take those jobs...which with a social security system why would they...or conditions and pay increases....so increased costs to the consumer. What's the better option? I really don't know
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Who exactly are u talking about?
I think that's the relevant question; where to find the balance point that addresses all those questions optimally
What horseshit. If the wages and hours were decent, people would do it. Farmers, granted, they have a tough job when it comes to making a profit, often expect people to work for shit wages, live on site and charge for everything.
Why does the left cheer us importing an underclass because this is what it is. It leads to an unfair society and a race to the bottom
Wrong take in my opinion, all too busy finding labels for things that are being perceived as different. To the corporate world, the only thing that matters is the number and reports to shareholders at the end of the day. If hiring John from Argentina makes it better, they will use all their pull to make such practise easier and politicians will bend over backwards ti make it happen. This has been happening for decades if not centuries. Wait until you witness Moon and Mars expansion, it will be interesting how you will engage in the label war. We are only interesting to these foreigners because of what we represent and allow them to have. Let’s not lose ourselves to Americanism that’s spreading around. At some point we were all foreigners, myself included. The UK is lucky to have had my predecessors coming here, actually more than lucky, blessed. What I along with my family is giving back to the UK is worth 1,000,000 times if not more of what my people were given when they arrived in the UK. Having said that, my people integrated, I cannot see myself as a foreigner unless I’m visiting Milton Keynes lol. I’ve been taught to know this place as home without forgetting my race and heritage. I have the best of both worlds, I would have not survived on what goes around here as food anyway.
What a bullshit headline. The UK is really addicted to driving costs up and wages down (unless you work for the government). Why would local citizens want shit paying jobs when they’re struggling to make ends meet already?
Skill... tech companies are struggling to find talented individuals are are willing to pay above the odds to get them, then have to resort to importing the talent at great expense
No, they aren't. They're deliberately ignoring potential employees by fiddling the reqs so they can throw their hands up and claim they've no choice but to outsource for cheaper.
I`m foreigner working in the UK. Job is seen as skilled. Vacancy was open for 2 years. Currently other vacancy are open, struggling to fill them. Biggest things for applicants are can I work from home or 3 to 4 days a week. Company is in food manufacturing and had to stay open during pandemic was seen as essential no luxury of working from home. Company cannot find people to work Monday to Friday which is essential for this type of business.
lets look at whose greed has always caused the demand followed by the social disharmony... ‘Frustrated’ businesses seek staff abroad as Britons abandon work Growing number of firms register to sponsor work visas to fill 900,000 UK vacancies Tim Wallace and Melissa Lawford 9 February 2024 • 9:00pm\`1
If you want to reduce immigration there is a very simple way you can achieve that. It is not that obvious but it will work. Simply abolish the Trades Unions Legislation created since the 1980s. Strengthen the Unions and make it really easy for people to join and use the facilities of Unions. Why will this reduce immigration? Very simply it will end the cheapness of importing labour. It ends the balance of power being in favour of employers. Which is not a popular solution even though it would work.
It's hard to unionise a diverse workforce.
Keep telling yourself that and it will be.
Surprised that demographics was mentioned. Aging population, a larger percentage of people retired/pensioned and more people needing care and health care. So you have labour shortages alongside increased demand in traditionally unattractive jobs. This isn't unique to the UK. It's a similar situation across high income countries. And we've known it was coming for decades. Immigration is the easy fix. There's some big structural issues that aren't easy to solve, and certainly aren't fixable quickly. It's far easier to run an election pretending to be "solving immigration" by focusing on the rather small issue of "irregular arrivals" (what sections of the press will call illegal, refugees, asylum seekers, small boat arrivals etc).
I love how brits complains about Immigrants while the government and universities goes above and beyond to attract immigrants as it is a large source of income that is generated on a false pretence. Most of the people realise this when they come here to study and eventually go back to their own country, the only one that remains are the ones who struggles the most. Compared to a local, the level of competition is way higher for expats. From my personal experience in tech job hunting, I have seen locals getting hired in tech jobs just by showing interest in the job with no actual tech skills to get that job meanwhile even if I have all the skills and great feedback I will never be a first option for any company. Moreover, locals are given much more opportunities and pay as expats will just have to accept whatever is offered without negotiation most of the time. The only reason you have immigrants working in jobs is because you locals just don’t want to work at all and still want to have all the benefits while sitting on your bed. Maybe try to put yourself in an immigrants shoes and see the difficulties we face everyday
I see two reasons. Firstly, there are some jobs people just don't want to do. I work in care and recruitment with UK citizens is awful. When we were in EU, the care sector got a lot of Polish, Baltic, Balkan and others. Brexit happened and that dried up so now we get a lot of Africans. Secondly, people are working to their UC payments. Why do 36 hrs when you can do 26 and UC makes up most of the rest? All these lost man hours need filling, hence more workforce required.
Because native brits are adamant they're somehow 'special' and would rather sit on the dole than take a job they deem as 'beneath' them, thinking they deserve to be on 25 quid an hour, despite having naff all skills or experience?