Press Releases

Youth Unemployment and Immigration: More than a Coincidence Says Report
9 January, 2012

A new report has highlighted the ‘remarkable coincidence’ between the rise in youth unemployment in the UK and the huge surge in immigration from Eastern Europe over the last eight years.

The report by think-tank Migration Watch UK shows that there is an apparent correlation between this surge and the surge in UK youth unemployment that followed.

Between the first quarter of 2004 and the third quarter of 2011, employment of workers born in the so called A8 countries increased by over 600,000. Over the same period the number of unemployed young people in the UK almost doubled, from 575,000 to just over a million.

‘As our report makes clear, measuring the effect of the recent unprecedented immigration levels on youth unemployment is not an exact science - and many attempts to do so have been criticised,’ said Sir Andrew Green, Migration Watch chairman.

‘Correlation is not causation but when the two statistics are placed side by side most objective people would consider it a very remarkable coincidence if there was no link at all between them, especially as migrants from the A8 have tended to be disproportionately young, well-educated, prepared to work for low wages and imbued with a strong work ethic,’ he said.

Such studies as have been undertaken have had greater success with gauging the impact on wage levels of migration into the UK, which – for the lowest 15 per cent of earners – have been adversely impacted.

The accession of eight former Soviet-bloc countries in Eastern Europe – the A8 - to the European Union from May 2004, led to a very substantial migration from these countries to the UK. Around 1.6 million workers from the A8 came to the UK during the seven year transition period and the number of people from these countries working in the UK increased by 600,000. The impact on the UK labour market has been significant – for example, in 2006-07 alone almost 223,000 Polish migrants registered in the UK to work. However, a study by the NIESR in April 2011 of the economic impact of this EU enlargement found that “the long run impact on [UK] GDP per capita can be expected to be negligible”

Sir Andrew said that while the economic downturn has undoubtedly had a major impact on youth unemployment the fact that so many migrants have found work in such difficult employment conditions demonstrates that there are jobs there to be had - although large numbers of them are going to foreign born workers.

Said Sir Andrew: ‘It is implausible and counter-intuitive to suggest – as the previous Government and some economists have done - that A8 migration has had virtually no impact on UK youth unemployment in this period.

‘Accurate estimation of the size of the impact is beset with problems of statistical ‘noise’ and more research is needed to assess the true scale of the impact.  We hear a great deal from employers about the value of immigrant labour, especially from Eastern Europe, but there are also costs some of which have undoubtedly fallen on young British born workers’, he said.

Taxpayer Funds £1m a week UK Visitor Appeals Process
‘Outrageously Generous System’ Must End Says Think Tank
13 December, 2011

The present situation, in which anyone refused a visa to visit family in the UK can appeal at no expense to themselves, is now costing the UK taxpayers some £50m a year and must be brought to an end immediately, says think tank Migration Watch UK in a report (Briefing Paper No 1.31) out today.

All charges for appeals against the refusal of a visa were abolished by the Labour Government in 2002 - since then the number of appeals has increased six fold to nearly a thousand a week - at a weekly cost of £1m.

‘At a time of severe financial stringency for UK families it is an outrageously generous system which taxpayers should no longer be expected to fund,’ said Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch. ‘It should be stopped immediately, the definition of “family visitor” tightened, charges reintroduced and consideration given to bonds to ensure people actually leave at the end of their visit. We hope that the government’s measures to be announced next week will deal with these issues.’

He said that the definition of family visitor is so wide that it could include as many as 120 relatives of a middle aged person in Britain. And a "family visitor" can generally appeal against refusal even if the applicant intends to do something else also during the trip as the legislation does not specify that visiting a family member has to be the sole or primary purpose of the trip.

Said Sir Andrew. ‘The government have at last seemed to realise that it is ludicrous and grossly unfair that taxpayers are expected to foot the bill for foreign citizens who wish to visit Britain.  In these straightened times there are much better uses for our money.’

He said that because of the well known inadequacies of the UK’s immigration system - in particular, its failure to record departures and poor record in removing people with no right to be here - there is a strong suspicion that this method is also used as yet another route to staying on illegally in Britain.

Sir Andrew said that of particular concern was the rapid growth of applications from certain countries.  In 2006 India, Pakistan and Nigeria produced over ¼ million applications - up by a factor of 16 over a period of four years.  175,000 were approved. The numbers have remained high; in 2010 applications from these three countries totalled 196,000 of which 151,000 were approved. The worldwide total in 2010 was 423,000 of which 338,000 were approved.

‘The whole issue of immigration and asylum was so ineptly handled by the previous administration that it will inevitably take time to reverse some of its most woeful decisions but this must surely be one of the easier ones to accomplish and should be a high priority for Ministers,’ said Sir Andrew.

Press Articles

What do the public really think about immigration?

By Sir Andrew Green
Chairman of Migration Watch UK
Conservativehome
7 Janurary, 2012

The immigration industry is in a corner.  The government are proceeding with wide-ranging reform of the immigration system supported by very strong public opinion.  Special interest groups are fighting rear guard actions, often based on misrepresentation of government policy. Otherwise, there is nobody arguing against the need to reduce net immigration.  Even Labour’s spokesman on immigration, Chris Bryant, was obliged to admit in Parliament that “yes of course we think that immigration has been too high and that it should be lower”.

Perhaps that is why some on the left are seeking to suggest that public opinion is not what it seems to be. The IPPR, the Migrants' Rights Network and others, have latched onto a paper produced by the Migration Observatory entitled “Thinking behind the numbers – understanding public opinion on immigration in Britain”.  And guess what... the BBC News website lapped it up too.

To read the full article click here.