Immigrants not “taking jobs” – official

Heard the one about the immigrants taking “our” jobs? It’s one of those water cooler topics, something to chat about at work. The immediate answer is, “Which jobs have they taken? Because they haven’t taken your job, have they?” Still the myth is peddled by far right parties trying to stir up racial tension. “They’re taking our jobs!” cry the unemployed youngsters in parts of Tower Hamlets, “that’s why we can’t get work.” Asked to point to which job the young person was about to get before an immigrant came in and “took” it off them, and the complainant is silenced.

Figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have now confirmed that the job-stealing immigrant is a myth, not a reality. Between November and January – when there was no end of fuss about Syrian refugees and migrants sneaking in from Calais – UK unemployment fell and there are more people in work than a year ago.

Several statistics were released by the ONS.
•Between November and January, unemployment fell by 28,000 and the rate of unemployment remained stable at 5.1%.
•At the end of January, 31.42 million people were in employment in the UK, which was an increase of nearly half a million over the past year and represented the highest rate of employment, 74.1%, since 1971, when records began.
•The employment rate is made up from 22.94 million full-time workers (up by 302,000 over the year) and 6.48 million part-time workers (an increase of 177,000 over the year).
•The number of benefit claimants in February was down by 18,000 to 716,000.
•Average earnings increased by 2.1% over the year to January 2016 (and by 2.2% if bonuses are excluded).

It’s not all good news. UK unemployment still stood at 1.68 million at the end of January, and the Government should be doing much more to cut it down. Creating new jobs… well, creates new jobs actually. Start a new construction project and employ labourers, builders and building specialists – and all these workers will have money to spend in the shops (more staff needed) and going out for meals (another waiter needed) and getting their hair cut (we can take on an apprentice now), and so forth. Tory Chancellor George Osborne has admitted this is a sensible strategy and is bringing forward various public construction projects which should all have a positive effect. He is, in essence, operating the Labour strategy of investing to create jobs. Unfortunately, he is also squandering the public finances in shoring up the profits of the private sector – which gives the UK’s long-suffering tax payers a pretty raw deal.

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