Immigration And The Uk Economy - Essay Example

IMMIGRATION AND THE UK ECONOMY Introduction The concept of Immigration refers to the human movement into a destination country where they are not natives or do not possess its citizenship to settle or reside there. Sometimes they wish to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens, or to take up employment as a migrant worker or temporarily as a foreign worker. In the UK, it involves the movement of Europeans and non-Europeans into the country, with the Europeans immigrants being given special treatment as opposed to non-Europeans (Ciupijus, 2011). But rather surprising is the way they are put into the same category and subsequently blamed for making the native Britons to lose to their jobs because they were willing to work for lesser pay. The Brits also accuse the immigrants of causing insecurity engaging in social deviance like heinous crimes. Immigration to the UK has affected its economy in negative ways. This forms a thesis for my topic that “Immigration has a negative impact on the United Kingdom’s economy,” subsequently, I will substantiate proposing and opposing argument on the same. Arguments for the topic The benefits given to the immigrants are supplementary to the UK’s economy. The benefits are given exclusively to citizens of member states of the European Economic Area (EEA). These benefits include Housing benefits where a member of EEA has the right to apply for housing benefits, which are likely to be paid at higher rates given their lower incomes. But this will not apply if one was already receiving income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance and Housing Benefit. They also receive other benefits. The EEA immigrants also receive Unemployment benefits; which is divided into income support, income-based jobseeker’s allowance, income related and support allowance. Non-EEA immigrants make up two-thirds of the UK immigrant population. Both groups considered together have taken away £14,000 billion more than they put in amounting to a deficit of around £96bn postulation the period 1995-2011. There is always a requirement for a claim since the cumulative value of the immigrants directly impacts the economy of the UK (Hatton & Tani, 2005). The only requirement one must have so that they can enjoy the jobseekers allowance is that one must be living in the UK, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or the Republic of Ireland for three months immediately before making a claim for Jobseeker’s allowance (Ciupijus, 2011). Considering this, more than 30,000 people from Slovakia, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Lithuania claim unemployment benefits in the UK, the research revealed. After a person satisfies the test in the UK, then that person can claim Jobseekers Allowance of up to £ 72.41 ($116) weekly for a single person, £113.70 for a couple (Hatton & Tani, 2005). The immigrant ends up costing the British taxpayers £5B a year in tax credits. New figures show almost £100 million a week is spent on the 415,000 people and cases of unemployed immigrants. Accordingly, there are foreign nationals who work in Britain who are benefitting from the payments a new analysis has revealed. We also have unemployment as another effect of immigration as stipulated above herein. High unemployment rates Most of the immigrants who go to the UK have low skills or professional training while others are skilled (Freeman, 2015). Those that are skilled end up taking Jobs of the UK natives who would have taken the jobs but due to lower skills or professional training they were avoided for the jobs. The semi-skilled immigrants are also willing to work at a much lesser pay as compared to their counterparts (Dustmann, Frattini & Preston, 2013). The immigration research committee of 2012 found out that Low-skilled migrants will be more likely to compete for jobs the UK Natives. This is contrary to the high-skilled migrants since high-skilled individuals work in occupations requiring more specialized skills. This wave of illegal immigrants has also caused Employers to hire their services instead of their natives because charge wages hence cheap labor (Dustmann, Frattini & Preston, 2013). This has resorted to the Government cracking down on firms employing illegal immigrants. The recent research on employment found out that employment of UK-born people had fallen over the most recent twelve-month period while employment of non-UK born people had increased. That is, the number of UK born people in employment was 25.08 million in three months as compared to March 2012, a decreased of 8,000 on a year earlier. The number of non-UK born people in employment was 4.06 million, up 16,000 from a year earlier (Dustmann & Faber, 2005). Pressure on public services The influx of immigrants has pressured the UK to spend more on healthcare facilities because most of this people tend to be sick or are non-healthy (Bail, 2008). There is also uncertainty over how much is spent by the NHS on foreigners who are not entitled to free treatment, with the current estimates ranges from £3m to £300m but the figure might also be higher. The Government has resorted to construction and expansion of the learning facilities such as schools and colleges (Ciupijus, 2011). This is the reason that has made the education facilities to be congested especially in the public schools and entities. The immigrants have also caused the squeezing of the housing sector in the country (McLaren & Johnson, 2007). It has prompted the Government through the housing project to carry out a feasibility study, and the results were startling. The Government found out that it needs to build 240,000 homes a year which means that its one house in every two months. On the other hand, there are also positive effects of immigration as we will see in the counterarguments (Heath & Cheung, 2007). Counterarguments The European immigrants to the UK have paid more taxes than they receive in benefits thus they have helped in relieving the fiscal burden of UK natives. They have also contributed to the financing of public services and social amenities (Sides & Citrin, 2007). The Europeans and non-Europeans who have come to the UK for higher education have contributed to over £2.5bn a year in school fees and in turn helped to finance education for domestic students. We see the breakdown as follows (Naidoo, 2007). Professor Christian Dustmann and Dr. Tommaso Frattini puiblished new findings on the fiscal consequence of European immigration to the UK. The Journal finds that Europeans who reached the UK since the year 2000 have contributed more than £21bn to the United Kingdom public finances between 2001 and 2011 (Dustmann, Frattini & Preston, 2013). They have also provided the UK with productive human capital that would have cost the UK £6.8bnin spending on education. But in response to this study a pressure group decided to give their views and denounced the studies done by the University College of London (UCL) as simply wrong. Yes, the immigrants had made a substantial contribution to the public finances in recent years but in the wrong run since 1995 to 2011 they have cost the tax payer more than £140bn over the said period of time. Young immigrants are also a positive effect of immigration (Castles & Kosack, 2010). The birthrates in the UK are low, and since most of the immigrants are young and vibrant, they will fill in the space needed by the Government workforce (Coleman, 2006). These young immigrants also end up paying taxes which is very important for economic growth. Some of the solutions that the Government has suggested is the pushing up of the retirement age, lowering of pension fees and financing the children of the natives. At the same time encouraging British people to have more children (Coleman, 2006). The legislations set up by the Government encourage people in their fifties and sixties to work longer thus ending up decreasing their pension portfolio and benefits by 10%. Conclusion The negative effects simply outweigh the positive effects of immigration. The tax contribution is enjoyed by immigrants who have not contributed anything. House prices go up since there is competition for the less housing facilities present in the country. Low wages and high unemployment rates simply make it unbearable for the Natives to survive (Dustmann, Frattini, & Preston, 2013). In principle, the UK must follow the Geneva Conventions of treating every human being as equal, however the Government must put in place strict rules to protect its people alongside the interests of the immigrants. References Bail, C. A. (2008). The configuration of symbolic boundaries against immigrants in Europe. American sociological review, 73(1), 37-59. Ciupijus, Z. (2011). Mobile central eastern Europeans in Britain: successful European Union citizens and disadvantaged labour migrants?. Work, Employment & Society, 25(3), 540-550. Castles, S., & Kosack, G. (2010). 1. The function of labour immigration in Western European capitalism. Selected Studies in International Migration and Immigrant Incorporation, 1, 21. Coleman, D. (2006). Immigration and ethnic change in low-fertility countries: A third demographic transition. Population and development Review, 401-446. Dustmann, C., Frattini, T., & Preston, I. P. (2013). The effect of immigration along the distribution of wages. The Review of Economic Studies, 80(1), 145-173. Dustmann, C., & Faber, F. (2005). Immigrants in the British Labour Market*. Fiscal Studies, 26(4), 423-470. Freeman, G. P. (2015). Immigrant labor and racial conflict in industrial societies: The French and British experience, 1945-1975. Princeton University Press. Hatton, T. J., & Tani, M. (2005). Immigration and Inter‐Regional Mobility in the UK, 1982–2000*. The Economic Journal, 115(507), F342-F358. Heath, A. F., & Cheung, S. Y. (2007). Unequal chances: Ethnic minorities in Western labour markets (Vol. 137). Oxford University Press. McLaren, L., & Johnson, M. (2007). Resources, group conflict and symbols: explaining anti‐immigration hostility in Britain. Political Studies, 55(4), 709-732. Naidoo, V. (2007). Research on the flow of international students to UK universities Determinants and implications. Journal of Research in International Education, 6(3), 287-307. Sides, J., & Citrin, J. (2007). European opinion about immigration: The role of identities, interests and information. British journal of political science, 37(03), 477-504. Read More