2. Table of Contents

Page

1. cover page——————————————————————————————–1
2. Table of contents————————————————————————————2
3. Executive Summary———————————————————————————-3
4. Introduction——————————————————————————————-4
5. The extent and the nature of the migrant labour in the UK————————————-4
6. Implications of the migrant labour in the UK—————————————————–5
7. Opportunities, difficulties and challenges that migrant labour has on:—————————5

7.1. The economy——————————————————————————————–5

7.2. The business community—————————————————————————-6

7.3. The society———————————————————————————————————7

8. Immigration models————————————————————————————————–8
9. 9. Conclusion and recommendations—————————————————————————-8
10. 10. References———————————————————————————————————10

3. Executive Summary

Immigration in the UK is on the increase, and there are worries of whether it is of any benefit to the UK economy. This report covers the extent, nature, and the implications of the migrant labour in the UK. There are also opportunities, difficulties, and the challenges of the migrant labour on the UK economy, business, and the society such as growth in the GDP, provision of the market for commodities, and provision of cheap labour. The challenges are high population, social evils, and high costs of maintaining the immigrants by the government. There are also a number of recommendations in this report.

4. Introduction

Immigration is the movement of people into a country either legally or illegally. Immigration of people from various parts of the world to the UK is increasing at a very high rate, and reports show that there are many challenges facing both the immigrants, the UK nationals, and the government. This report will research on the extent, the nature, and the implications of the migrant labour in the UK by analysing various statistics and literature materials. There is a belief that immigration has a negative impact to the UK, but there is need to find out whether there are any positive effects of immigration to the economy, the business, or the society. This research paper will investigate such areas as the opportunities, difficulties, and the challenges of the migrant labour in the economy, the society, and the businesses of the UK. The paper will also review the different immigration models and provide recommendations on the best ways to deal with the immigration issues by the UK government, the UK social organizations, and the business owners.

5. The Extent and the Nature of Migrant Labour in the UK

Immigration in the UK is on a tremendous increase, especially from the former colonies of the British empire, such as India, Kenya, South Africa, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Somerville, & Sumption 2009). Most of the immigrants come to the UK for the scholarship purposes and to look for employment opportunities. The other immigrants come as refugees seeking accommodation as guided by the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention and the member States of the European Union. Between 2001 and 2011 there was an increase of about 70 per cent foreign-born immigrants. The other statistics show that in 2013, the people arriving to live in the UK were about 526000 against 314000 people who left. The figures reveal a net inward migration of 212000, with the majority arriving from China, the US, India, Poland, and Australia, with the largest groups with British citizenship being from India, Somalia, Pakistan, and Philippines (CIPD 2013).

The other immigrants to the UK are job seekers looking for greener pastures, either as permanent employees or casual labourers. There are also illegal immigrants, who visit the UK with various missions, such as trade, running away from their potential enemies, or just to explore the UK. There are other immigrants who travel to the UK to further their education in the tertiary institutions, of which some get scholarship from the UK universities. The other immigrants visit on academic exchange programs between their countries and the UK academic institutions and others as tourists.

6. Implications of migrant labour in the UK.

Immigrants contribute a lot to the labour force in the UK both in the government and the private sector. The labour supplied by the immigrants can be skilled, semi-skilled or non-skilled depending on the academic level of the workers and their specialization. The immigrants offer a substitute to the UK labour force in cases, where there is shortage of employees. On the other hand very many migrant labourers in the UK can lead to mass unemployment to the UK citizens since the immigrants take all the jobs at very low pay. Some of the migrant labourers may not have the best expertise to perform the assigned tasks, which can result to the production of substandard goods and services.

7. Opportunities, difficulties and challenges that migrant labour has on:

7.1 The Economy

The influx of cheap migrant labour contributes positively in the growth of the economy of the UK, as many immigrants do not demand very huge salaries like the UK citizens (Robinson 2010). The cheap labour enables the small industries to cut down on their wage bill per month, thus, the industries can make huge profits. Some of the immigrants are well trained with the necessary skills, some of which are scarce in the UK. These workers can offer their skills to the areas with labour shortages, which reduces the labour deficit in the economy. The overall benefit of the immigrant in the UK is an increase in the economy of the UK in terms of its GDP. Reports from the Migration Watch UK showed that in 2007, there was an increase of about 4 billion pounds from the contribution of the immigrant workers (Robinson 2010). The foreign migrants pay taxes and other levies, such as business licences, which improve the economy of the UK.

The managed migration, which involves the immigration of students and legal labour from outside of the European Union increases the labour in the UK (CIPD 2014). This group of people provide the needed labour in the UK, leading to improved development of the economy. The UK businesses can benefit a lot from the immigrants in terms of growth and the diversity. Some immigrants visit the UK as tourists, which contribute to the increased earnings in form of foreign currency, increasing the economic development of the UK.

Immigration in a large scale is dangerous to an economy, especially to the indigenous people of the UK. This is because immigration leads to the depressed wages for the local people, when many people seek employment opportunities and accept very low wages. The British workers, especially at the lower pay scale, find it difficult to secure jobs at better rates as most of the jobs go to the immigrant workers. When many people are willing to work even with a very low pay, it is difficult for the indigenous British nationals to claim higher pays. Very many immigrants in the UK create a lot of pressure on the resources due to overpopulation, which leads to low per capita income, as the government spends a lot of resources on their upkeep. Many resources go to taking care of the high population instead of developing the UK economy.

7.2 The business

Most of the people who migrate to the UK go to look for job opportunities in the various organizations or the government bodies. Many business organizations can tap the cheap labour provided by the immigrants, which can earn them high profits since the overhead costs are low (CIPD 2014). The immigrants provide labour, which is in shortage to various business ventures, which helps to bridge the gap that exists, due to the fewer native workers in the UK. Some immigrants are businessmen with high management skills, which contribute to the growth of several business organizations in the UK. Immigrants with good entrepreneurship skills and experience can help in the growth and the diversity of many ventures, which can be in the UK or in their mother countries.

The high population created by the immigrants creates a ready market for many business organizations, because of the increase in the volume of sales. Research indicates that the immigrants work in the jobs that are risky due to low education levels, and most of the immigrants in the metropolitan areas are self-employed (Dustmann, & Frattini). Self-employment results to creation of business opportunities and entrepreneurial activities in the UK.

There are various difficulties experienced due to the presence of the migrant labour in the UK as some of the workers may experience language barriers in their places of work. Communication is very vital in any organization for efficient business transactions, and where it lacks, there is always a breakdown to the proper passing of information in various management levels. The other challenge in the business field is the emergence of illegal businesses such as prostitution, drug trafficking, and sometimes child trafficking among the immigrants. There are also problems of integration of the employees in the places of work, due to the differences in the race, religion, and the cultural values, which can affect the performance of the business (Noxolo 2009).

7.3 The society

Immigration contributes a lot to the UK’s cultural and social values through integration and the accommodation of the immigrants. Integration minimizes the social prejudice and discrimination in terms of the race, religion or the culture of the immigrants (Boswell 2009). Many social groups like the human rights groups are on the increase to help the immigrants cope with their new environment, and adapt to the new culture, while holding to their values, such as religion. In many countries equality for women rights, religion, forced marriages, and female genital mutilation are common. When these communities migrate to the UK, they find themselves on the wrong side of the law since in the UK, engaging in the practices, is a crime. Statistics shows that the crime rates involving human rights violation is on the increase among many immigrants (Finney, & Simpson 2009). The government of UK is funding very many welfare groups that deal with the immigrants to enable them integrate well with the UK natives.

The other social challenges with the labour immigrants in the UK is the spread of prostitution and the degradation of the moral values due to integration of the immigrants with the natives. There is also increased rate of HIV infections, which led to introduction of plans to have HIV testing for all the immigrants (Hamsphire 2008). The testing will have some benefits to the public health, public funds, and the Immigrants in the UK. The other challenges facing the immigrants are the drug abuse, racial discrimination, religious prejudices, and gender stereotyping.

8. Immigration models

The national models of immigration define how the Western countries incorporate immigrants and the minority groups in their countries. Examples of the models are the French assimilation model, which basis its national identity with the universal public philosophy, and there is no groupings in terms of ethnicity, religion or race. The British model is the accommodation model, whose basis is the multi-cultural accommodation of the immigrants and the minority group. There is promotion of group-based identities and not a common citizenship.

9. Conclusion and Recommendations

According to this research, immigration to the UK is on the increase as many people search for employment opportunities. There are several benefits of the migrant labour in the UK economy, business, and the society. First, the immigrants, contributes in payment of taxes and other levies required by the government, which increases the government’s revenue. The immigrants also provide labour at lower rates than the UK citizens, which can lead to high profits for businesses (Boswell 2009). However, the immigrants may lead to increased government spending on their upkeep, depress wages for the UK nationals, and lead to low percapita income for the UK economy. The immigrants contribute a lot to the growth of businesses by offering a ready market for the produce, and providing the much needed skilled and semi-skilled labour in the business world. Entrepreneurial activities are on the rise, as most of the immigrants are self-employed. However, there are many illegal businesses, such as drug trafficking by the immigrants, as they struggle to earn a living. Many immigrants face difficulties such as the language barrier, which hinders communication in the business world. The society also gains from the presence of the immigrants in the UK, because of the interaction of the foreigners and the UK nationals. Socialization leads to the cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity. On the other hand, there are vices due to the interaction with the immigrants, such as social evils like prostitution, discrimination and the social prejudice.

There is the need for more research on immigration, especially on the causes of immigration of people from their countries to the UK, and how to help immigrants cope with their new environment. The government of UK should come up with laws and regulations to reduce the number of immigrants. It is advisable for the government of the UK to set labour wages so that all the workers, both the UK and the immigrants receive a uniform pay.

References

Boswell, C., 2009. Knowledge, legitimation and the politics of risk: The functions of research in public debates on migration. Political Studies, 57 (1), 165–186.

Boswell, C., 2009. The Political Uses of Expert Knowledge: Immigration Policy and Social Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CIPD, 2013. The State of Migration: Employing Migrant Workers, London: CIPD.

CIPD, 2014. The growth of EU labour: assessing the impact on the UK labour market, London: CIPD .

Dustmann, C., & Frattini, T., 2013. The Fiscal Effects of Immigration to the UK, London: UCL.

Finney, N., & Simpson, L., 2009. ‘Sleepwalking to Segregation’? Challenging Myths about Race and Migration. Bristol: Policy Press.

Hampshire, J., 2008. Disembedding liberalism? Immigration politics and security in Britain since 9/11. In Givens, Terri E.; Freeman, Gary P.; Leal, David L. Immigration Policy and Security: US, European, and Commonwealth Perspectives. London: Routledge.

Noxolo, P., 2009. Negotiating security: Governmentality and asylum/immigration NGOs in the UK. In Ingram, Alan; Dodds, Klaus. Spaces of Security and Insecurity: Geographies of the War on Terror. Farnham: Ashgate.

Robinson, D., 2010. New immigrants and migrants in social housing in Britain: Discursive themes and lived realities. Policy & Politics, 38 (1), 57–77.

Somerville, W., Sumption, M., 2009. Immigration and the labour market: Theory, evidence and policy. Equality and Human Rights Commission, 45.