Proposals for a points-based migration system embody at least six of the nastier features of New Labour's ideology.
1. Agenda manipulation. The report, and the "consultation exercise" behind it compares the proposed system to the existing one. But it does not compare points-based migration to an obvious alternative - free migration. That's just not on the agenda.
2. A failure to recognize that markets work. Take the proposals for "tier 2" immigrants - those with job offers from employers.
These immigrants will automatically be allowed in if the offer is in a "shortage occupation", to be defined by a Skills Advisory Body. Otherwise, employers will be "required to demonstrate that they had not been able to fill the job through JobCentre Plus", and workers will have to earn over £21,000 (or less if highly educated).
What this misses is that the mere act of offering a job to a migrant is itself demonstration that the vacancy is hard to fill - that there's a shortage of domestic workers.
This is because there are countless reasons why an employer would prefer to hire an indigenous worker: it's easier to advertise for them; they are more likely to be culturally attuned to clients and co-workers; their references will be more trustworthy; their experience will be easier to assess because you're more likely to know, if only by reputation, the applicants previous employers.
Why would an employer forego all these advantages, unless the vacancy were hard to fill? Why second-guess the market?
3. The imposition of unnecessary bureaucracy upon firms. Sure, the proposed system is less bureaucratic than the existing one - but that's not the relevant comparison.
Just check out the regulatory impact assessment.
4. An unthinking presumption that management is necessary. In the foreword to the report, Clarke says: "migration is of enormous benefit to a country, when it is managed properly." Why the need for the qualification? The report doesn't assess the merits of managed versus free migration, so it provides no evidence for it. It's just a prejudice - that a free market cannot deliver the benefits.
5. The knee-jerk illiberalism. Why should the state intervene in a free transaction between employer and worker? Clarke doesn't give us any reason to do so. And it's not obvious what the reason might be.
Sure, you can argue that employing migrants depresses wages, hence imposing an externality onto others. But this runs into two problems. First, it probably ain't true. This Home Office-sponsored research (pdf) concludes:
There is no strong evidence of large adverse effects of immigration on employment or wages of existing workers...There is some weak evidence of negative effects on employment but these are small and for most groups of the population it is impossible to reject the absence of any effect with the data used here. Insofar as there is evidence of any effecton wages, it suggests immigration enhances wage growth.
Second, the desire to protect wages is a case for restricting imports as much as migration; remember factor price equalization?
6. A pandering to public prejudice. Why is there no reference to the possibility of free migration, or the benefits thereof? Why, for that matter, are the arguments against immigration - the social costs of non-homogenous communities - not considered and rejected? Could it be that New Labour is just scared to make the case, and that it just wants to appear to be in control of migration?
I'd guess that politicians believe that free immigration would be a major vote loser, hence the idea isn't given the time of day. Whether that assumption is right I don't know.
So many questions ....
If all barriers to immigration were removed, would you expect to see immigration levels rise?
If so, by how much? What would cause them to stablise?
Are there any valid reasons to be worried about increased levels of immigration, in your view?
Do you have any views on whether, or how, immigrants should be given access to the welfare state and other state-funded services?
Posted by: Luis Enrique | March 08, 2006 at 03:13 PM
you don't see many jobs over £21k advertised at Jobcentre plus!
my interpretation of the governments actoins is that in the new EU with the new member states, there is oodles of spare labour capacity and the govt is therefore less sympathetic to the claim that labour shortages necessitate the need to look outside the EU
ok completely free markets are nice, but the labour market is highly regulated anyway
Not justifying the points system, but note that it is a long time coming after US, Canada, Australia and NZ have long operated one
And its mostly the lower skilled jobs that have the shortages anyhow - and the skills lacking are soft skills, turning up on time, customer skills etc
Bit of a contradiction going on somewhere...
The govt is still in the miasmoric fantasy that the UK is undergoing a skills revoluation, when the truth is that the economy is gradually upskilling and that's about it
Under the current work permit system, highly skilled specialists can get work permits and get into work
I just don't see what the points system adds, except another period of bedding in a new system and more change for the FO and IND.
Posted by: angry_economist | March 08, 2006 at 05:37 PM
Well, this is precisely why free trade will never come to fruition. I don't understand why lobby group beat this dead horse - perhaps because fair trade would hurt their members.
The movement of labour from our neighbours in eastern Europe to our country (which has reduced wage inflation pressure and helped our economy) is met with too much xenophobia. It is therefore an outright contradiction for the government to be actively promoting free trade and actively implementing policy that nullifies the opportunities for it.
And as a minor point, the points based system, like the current immigration policy, will affect poor country immigrants more that it will US, Canada, Australia and NZ ones. Xenophobia is a terrible thing. For instance, my flatmate expresses outright ignorance about almost all minority groups, spews out propaganda nonsense from the low-grade newspapers and has the backing of her dad who believes in almost supremacist views. Generally speaking, such people are in abundance and at all levels of education. You find the same nonsensical views in the work place.
xenophobia in a "tolerant" society drives policy.
http://culturefusion.blogspot.com/2005/09/immigration-once-again.html
Posted by: Curious | March 10, 2006 at 09:08 AM
Markets don't work freely as long as you have a welfare state. As long as we retain a welfare state then curbs on immigration are completely defensible.
Posted by: John Hustings | March 13, 2006 at 03:28 PM