Posted on 08/23/2005 5:50:01 PM PDT by blam
Soviet bloc workers flocking to Britain
By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
(Filed: 24/08/2005)
Nearly a quarter of a million workers from the east European countries that joined the EU in 2004 have arrived to work in Britain over the past year - more than 15 times the Home Office estimate, official figures showed yesterday.
Half the new workers are from Poland and are predominantly in their 20s.
Britain has proved attractive to nationals from the eight former Soviet-bloc countries, not only because of its buoyant economy but also because other EU members exercised an option to restrict access to their labour markets for up to seven years. Normally, all EU nationals are free to move anywhere in the Union to look for work and settle.
The Government said at the time that there would be little impact on economic migration and ministers dismissed suggestions of a major influx. The Home Office forecast an increase of up to 13,000 workers a year.
Figures published yesterday, however, showed that between May 2004 and June 30 this year there were 232,000 applicants for work under the special registration scheme established by the Government to defuse a political row over its unwillingness to impose restrictions. Ministers said that with unemployment at its lowest for a generation, Britain needed the workers to fill job vacancies, particularly in the service sector.
By far the largest number of workers has come from Poland, with 131,000, though as a proportion of the population, Lithuania has supplied most with 34,000, representing 0.8 per cent of its total workforce. Most are young - between 18 and 34 - and 60 per cent are men.
Few have brought dependants and hardly any have claimed any benefits, which was one cause of the controversy that blew up before the accession last year.
A separate report from the Department for Work and Pensions suggests that the influx of east European workers has had a positive impact on the economy. It said that despite fears that the incomers would displace existing workers and depress wages, their arrival had allowed certain sectors to expand, creating more jobs and leaving pay levels unchanged.
''Our results suggest that the primary impact has been to increase output and total employment, with minimal impact on native workers,'' the study added. ''Overall, the economic impact of accession … appears to have been modest, but broadly positive, reflecting the flexibility and speed of adjustment of the UK labour market.'' One in five of the new workers had gone to London to work, although the Midlands and the South West were now seeing rising numbers.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the Migrationwatch UK think-tank, said: ''The Home Office must reduce the number of work permits granted to people from outside the EU to compensate for this very large inflow.''
BTTT
...all EU nationals are free to move anywhere in the Union to look for work and settle....
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Oh God, don't let Bush see this comment...
LOL.Really. Maybe we could get some of the Poles to immigrate here. Great people. And our neighbors when I was little were Yugoslavian. Hardest working people I ever knew.
I hope we see the day when this area is healed of its wounds from 80 years of fascism and communism.
You notice how when the media wants to dramatize they use the million instead of the thousand. As "a quarter million" vs "250,000. It puts their stamp of drama on it.
This is not bad news. Most of them are not Muslims.
If I'm not mistaken, residents of one EU country still need some form of 'permission' to work in another EU country. The threshold is not as high as moving between other non EU countries, but still nontrivial. I.e. Its not like moving between states in the US quite yet. Then again, the permission might just be for migration from 'new' Europe to 'old' Europe.
Not every country wants them. I could be wrong today, but as far as I've been informed know, the idiot Frogs like their unassimilated welfare class of North Africans, and the idiot Krauts prefer their equally muzzle limbed Turks.
Good for the UK! 100,000+ healthy ambitious young Poles(Christians) are an immigration coup! The US should be so lucky. Instead we get moslem hordes and border riff-raff.
Yup. The French refer to them as 'Polish Plumbers.' I think it's like a derogatory term.
The perfect straight line.
"The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."
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