Effects That Immigration Has Had on the United Kingdom Job Marketplace - Essay Example

? The of the article discusses the effects that immigration has had on the United Kingdom job marketplace. The population of the United Kingdom is 63 million people (Cia, 2012). The majority of the immigrants that arrived to the UK were from Eastern European nations. The numbers of immigrants that arrived is staggering since over 3.75 million immigrants entered the nation between 2004 and 2010. The author believes that the influx of immigrants that entered the nation has adversely affected the job marketplace in the United Kingdom. One of the main arguments of the author is that immigrants are taking jobs away from the British people. The article showed a lot of statistics and numbers to justify the position of the author. Overall the article was well written and it demonstrated a lot of evidence that might suggest that the author’s claim is correct. For instance he stated that since 2004 over 600,000 immigrants have entered the job market and during that time 450,000 young workers became unemployed. He also stated the logical argument that a higher number of people in the country meant that the government had to spend more money on costs of new homes, education, social care, and infrastructure. He also stated another fact that the bigger the population the more congested the city becomes which is an absolute truth. Another interest argument made by the author was that the immigrants are not contributing sufficiently to the overall economy based on how many resources they were depleting. The influx of immigrants is adding 1% to the population, but is only contributing 0.33% to the overall production. Despite the arguments that were made in this article my opinion is that the author did a poor job of proving the correlation between immigration and employment. His argument were biased and to certain extent racist because he made it seem as if the people that were entering the United Kingdom in search for a better life were a type of plague to the society when in reality they are enriching the culture of the country and providing much need labor. These poor immigrants are accepting low paying jobs that the majority of British people are not willing to take. When the author stated that the population growth associated with immigrants was not equal to the production they were creating his statistical approach was flawed because the reason that these workers were not adding more to economic production is because these humans were sacrificing themselves in very low paying jobs. Another major flaw in the article was that the author failed to provide solutions on what the government should do to fix the problem. Since the author thinks that immigration is a problem he should have provided alternative solutions based on empirical data such as proposing that the U.K. imposed an immigration quota to limit the amount of people that can enter the country. This is just a theoretical example of something that could be done. A better way to deal with the problem is by the government of the United Kingdom taking measures to improve the state of the economy to increase the amount of jobs available for British nationals and people immigrating into the U.K. A second way that the government can improve the economy is by forming alliances with the private industry to spur job creation by offering better economic incentives that will attract foreign investors. The article stated that according to the Office of National Statistics Eastern Europeans are willing to do the dirty, difficult, and dangerous jobs for lower wages. Since this group of people is willing to sacrifice themselves more than British nationals it is estimated that 95% of males and 80% of female immigrants have been able to find jobs despite the weak economy. It is important to analyze the effect that this labor force has on the corporate world. From an economic and business standpoint corporations and businesses are greatly benefiting from the influx of immigrant workers because these companies are now able to fill vacant job positions they were having a hard time recruiting people to work for them. The only way these industries would have been able to fill these positions if the immigrants had not come to the United Kingdom was by paying above marketplace wages which would have hurt the profitability of these businesses. A social aspect of this scenario that should have been discussed more deeply by the author is whether or not the immigrants that came to the United Kingdom are been exploited by the corporate world. The author did not seem to care about their well being since his argument was biased and one sided. The author could have use primary and secondary research to investigated the topic more deeply and provide a better variety of perspectives. The article overall was very interesting since it discussed a topic that affects the United Kingdom and its people. There were lots of interesting statistics and data utilized in the article to justify the position of the author that the immigration movement into the United Kingdom between 2004 and 2010 had adversely affected the nation. I give credit to the author for writing an article that was consistent in its views, but overall the author failed to meet all the criteria necessary such as providing multiple views for me to validate this article and recommend it to someone else as a good piece of literature. Immigration is a subject that requires a deep analysis of its pros and cons. In the history of mankind immigration has always been an integral part of society as people have always been in search for a better life at different locations. The Europeans discovered the Americas by immigrating into an unknown land. I though that the article failed miserably at discussing the virtues that immigration can have for a country such as the United Kingdom. The positive aspects of immigration are not limited to the job marketplace. Immigration helps nations improve their culture and diversity. Immigrants looking to contribute to a society through their hard work and efforts should always be welcome. References Cia.gov (2012). Europe: United Kingdom. [Accessed 26 June 2012] Read More