3.4.3.3  Moving People €“ Economic Migration

(This is an archived page, from Edition 2 of the Patterns of Power book.  The current versions is at https://www.patternsofpower.org/patterns/economic/subsidiarity/labour/immigration/).

Moving people, to places where work is available, creates problems.  Cities act as a magnet, attracting people to migrate from the countryside, but almost everywhere there are resulting infrastructure problems €“ and often social problems as well.  Migration of people from one country to another is an even more sensitive problem, though there economic advantages:

ˇ     Immigrants add to the economic capacity of a country.  If the increase can be absorbed, the economy grows and the population benefits:

-- Those who work make an economic contribution; the UK economy gained overall from recent immigrants.[1]

-- Immigrants who pay tax are helping to fund existing government spend programmes, including pensions;

-- They can fill skills shortages, especially if their qualifications are recognised; schemes such as the International Baccalaureate are helpful.

ˇ     The process of immigration is a means of levelling out the supply and demand of labour.  This can help to overcome differences in economic performance within the EU, for example, where London was famously grateful for the presence of Polish plumbers in the early 21st century.[2]  Their customers benefited from lower prices.[3]  Their trade rivals were not pleased, but the influx did not lead to any reported unemployment of plumbers at that time.

ˇ     Immigration can bring innovation benefits by increasing diversity and creating new markets, particularly in big cities.[4]  Immigrants are wealth creators, consumers and taxpayers.  They create new demand for goods and services from existing suppliers and they can revitalise run-down urban areas by setting up new businesses, as with the influx of Mexicans into New Orleans after the 2006 floods.[5]  (Their impact on unemployment in that example was to slightly reduce it overall). 

ˇ     Immigration can drive down wages, particularly for unskilled jobs.  This is a benefit for employers and consumers, but is a threat to those who are competing for these jobs. 

-- The threat can be offset by having a minimum wage (3.3.3.3).

-- If the extra labour is absorbed, and there is no increase in unemployment, no €˜jobs have been lost to immigrants€™. 

ˇ     Trade links can be more easily developed with other countries, by making use of the family networks of immigrants from those countries.[6]

ˇ     Foreign students are potential immigrants with a ready-made path for integration into the destination country.  They accounted for over half of Australian highly-skilled immigration by the early 21st century, for example.[7] 

ˇ     Migration can benefit the migrants€™ country of origin.  For some poorer economies, such as the Philippines, money sent back home by the migrants is a €œkey plank€ in their economic policy.[8]

But although migration is economically beneficial,[9] it creates political challenges €“ particularly if there are large numbers involved (6.7.4.1).  The political problems, such as housing and education, need to be solved €“ but politicians who inveigh against immigration on economic grounds, for example by repeating the fallacy that €˜they are taking our jobs€™, are dishonest; they also risk inflaming identity politics (6.7.4.2).

Š PatternsofPower.org, 2014



[1] On 5 November 2013, the BBC published a report entitled Recent immigrants to UK 'make net contribution' which was available in April 2014 at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24813467. It summarised the findings of a study by University College London, which said €œrecent immigrants were less likely to claim benefits and live in social housing than people born in Britain€.  

[2] The Observer published an article on Polish plumbers on 29 May 2005, which was available in April 2014 at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/may/29/france.immigration.

[3] A price of less than half of an alternative quotation was used as an illustration in April 2014 on the €™Polish Plumbers€™ website at http://www.polish-plumbers.co.uk/.  The same website stated that the company was not registered to the British Corgi standard €“ but pointed out that most jobs don€™t require Corgi-registered plumbers.

[4] An IPPR report in September 2008, entitled Your Place or Mine? stated (on page 5) that:

€œIn some places, mainly big cities, the net impact of migration is generally strongly positive. New arrivals and the resultant growth in diversity can help drive forward innovation, open up trade links and keep economies on high-value growth paths. In this scenario, migration is a net benefit to the local area, and also contributes to productivity at the national level.€

It said that outside the big cities the effects were less obviously beneficial, particularly if migrants were used as cheap labour, but:

€œIn this scenario, migration may play a part in keeping these local economies on a low-cost, low valued-added path, with wider benefits not being realised. But without migration, these areas could fall into economic decline.€

This report was available in April 2014 at http://www.forschungsnetzwerk.at/downloadpub/your_place_or_mine.pdf.

[5] The impact of Mexican immigration into New Orleans was described as revitalisation:

€œthe Latino immigrants in New Orleans are not merely doing construction. They're also opening stores and restaurants, breathing economic vitality into a city still badly in need of a boost.€

This was reported 28 August 2007 in the Wall Street Journal in an article entitled The New Latin Quarter, and was referenced on the Cafe Hayek blog, which was available in April 2014 at http://cafehayek.com/2007/08/grateful-for-im.html.

[6] On 19 November 2011, The Economist published a leader entitled The magic of diasporas which was available in April 2014 at http://www.economist.com/node/21538742.

[7] This statistic was quoted by Peter Sutherland, as the United Nations special representative for migration, in a lecture entitled The Age of Mobility at the LSE on 26 November 2008.  The podcast of this lecture was available in April 2014 at http://www2.lse.ac.uk/government/research/resgroups/MSU/sutherland261108.aspx.

[8] In his lecture The Age of Mobility quoted earlier, Peter Sutherland stated that:

 "a key plank of the Philippine economic policy is related to the deliberate development of a policy of having migrants and using the resources that migrants send back to the Philippines".

The podcast of this lecture was available in April 2014 at http://www2.lse.ac.uk/government/research/resgroups/MSU/sutherland261108.aspx.

[9] The empirical data that demonstrate the economic benefits of immigration were cited in, for example, an article An Economic Case for Immigration, published by the Library of Economics and Liberty and available in April 2014 at http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2010/Powellimmigration.html.  This article also debunked the popular fallacies.