Why do we need foreign labour when we have so many unemployed?

A texter to Good Morning Ulster today asked the question: ‘Why do we need cheap foreign labour when we have 100,000 unemployed?’

I voted against Brexit and I also believe it is good to have free movement of labour, but I must admit the texter had a point. It is a strange state of affairs that we import labour from all over the world when we have so many local people economically inactive. From the NISRA Report on Economic Inactivity:

  • In 2018, there were 318,000 economically inactive people of working age in NI, accounting for over a quarter of the working age population (27.2%).
  • Students and retirees account for almost two-fifths (38.8%) of all economically inactive persons. Excluding these students and retirees brings down the number of economically inactive people to 195,000 in 2018.
  • There has consistently been a higher number of inactive females than males, with approximately three-fifths of those inactive identifying as female.
  • Those aged 50-64 made up the largest proportion of those inactive, while the 25-34 age range had the smallest proportion.
  • NI has had the highest rate of economic inactivity in the UK for the past 30+ years. NI’s economic inactivity rate is 27.2%, while the economic inactivity rate for the UK as a whole is 21.7%.
  • Long term sickness and disability were the most common reasons for economic inactivity in the UK and NI. At 31.3% for 2018, the proportion citing this as the main reason for inactivity in NI was 6 percentage points higher than the UK as a whole (25.4%).
  • Sickness and disability has been the most frequently given reason over the past decade (it held this position in 8 out of the past 10 years) and over the past 30 years.
  • The higher incidence of economic inactivity in NI is not limited to those citing long term sickness and disability as their main reason for not working or looking for work. The proportion of working age population who are inactive due to looking after family/home, due to study and due to retirement are also higher in NI than the UK as a whole.

So you can see we have a bit of an issue getting people into the workforce. There are several reasons for this:

Low pay: The minimum wage is now £8.72. I must confess I can’t blame people if they are in no rush to work in nursing homes etc for this level of pay. The UK has a very low level of productivity, and Northern Ireland has one of the worst levels of productivity in the UK. Many employers use low paid immigrant staff to make up for inefficiencies. Wages will need to rise and I personally think that is a good thing. Everyone should get a living wage no matter what the job. Sure the price of goods and services will rise, and taxes will likely also have to rise to pay for higher wages, but if it means a more equal society that is ok by me.

Hard work: I can only imagine the horrors that await anyone working in some of our meat processing plants. A friend used to work for a certain well-known chicken processor and he said one his fellow worker’s party tricks was that he would bite the head off a live chicken for 50p. The Agri sector, in particular, is very hard work and locals are saying no thanks. We are going to need to automate more and make the jobs less horrendous. Burnout is also becoming a factor these days, especially with some high-stress occupations like medicine: the majority of UK GPs say they are burned out, so this is an issue across all sectors and professions.

Inflexible labour market: I had a look at a local job site and for my industry of IT there were 900 full-time job listings but only 1 part-time job listing. There is a massive pool of potential workers who can not commit to full-time work but can do part-time. Parents of young children, carers, retired people etc. Younger people are less willing to work long hours: as crazy as it sounds, they expect to have a life outside work. Employers need to be more flexible. It is better to have a great part-time employee than a useless full-time employee.

Poor skills: Talk to any business person and they will wax lyrically about the work ethic of many foreign workers. In particular the Polish have a reputation for being great grafters. In comparison, many of our locals take a more relaxed view of productivity, shall we say. Turning up late, always on their phones, poor people skills, low ability in key skills like English and maths etc. It is a damning indictment of our education system that after 12 years of schooling we can churn out so many without the basic skills. Employers are told they must train more. But you can understand their frustration if they are expected to fill in the gaps for a poor education system.

Work gives people a sense of purpose. It is extremely important to your sense of self-worth to be doing useful work. Full employment is a realistic goal we should strive for. More people in employment will drive down the benefits bill, it will improve the economy and also I believe make people happier.

Warren Buffet has a saying – ‘When the tide goes out you can see who has been swimming naked’. Brexit will force us to confront these issues in our workforce. We need to radically reform our education system and work environment to be more people-friendly.

Photo by geralt is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA

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