Sir – Dr Emlyn-Jones (Letters, August 23), claims that unemployment is unaffected by immigration. The National Institute for Economic and Social Research helps to set governmental policy and as such is neither entirely independent nor guaranteed to be right. Politics isn’t an exact science and at times policy is retrospectively proved wrong.
Here, NIESR produced a discussion paper, not a definitive report and it’s caveated.
It compares immigrant national insurance registrations against claimant count, concluding that immigration has no effect on unemployment and that where immigration is significant, the claimant count doesn’t increase. It concedes, however, that immigrants choose areas where jobs are available. The Office for National Statistics clarify that in the second half of the last decade when immigration was particularly high, unemployment went up from 4.7 per cent to eight per cent. Most tellingly, unemployment in the 16-24-year-olds went up from 13 per cent to 20 per cent.
The number claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance rose from eight per cent to 12 per cent in the low-skilled sector, but increased across all sectors. A net figure of one immigrant for every 25 existing residents came to live here in just 10 years.
I strongly agree with inclusion and don’t blame immigrants for coming here — why shouldn’t they make better lives for their families? However, the currently high rate is unsustainable. Iain Duncan-Smith said: “Controlling immigration is critical or we risk losing another generation to dependency and hopelessness.” Ed Miliband said: “It was a mistake not to impose transitional controls on accession from Eastern European countries. We severely underestimated the number of people who would come here. We were dazzled by globalisation and too sanguine about its price.”
So now it’s time to stand back and rethink.
Justine Garbutt, Alvescot
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