Jobs & Welfare - Main Points

The below summary was last updated July 2019

Immigration can have a negative impact on the employment prospects of UK young people.
It can also have a negative impact on the wages of the lowest-paid (although it can raise the wages of those on the highest pay).
Immigration into low paid work adds significantly to the working-age benefits bill and to rapid population growth / congestion with no assurance that tax revenue would meet the costs.
Working-age benefits to all migrants in 2015/16 cost an estimated £13.6 billion. EU migrants cost £4.7 bn (or £13 million per day) and the bill for non-EU migrants was £8.9 billion.
Why should the UK taxpayer continue to subsidise businesses so that they can employ foreign-born workers on low rates of pay?
The Migration Advisory Committee point to ‘the need to raise British human capital and lessen employer dependence on immigration’. Government and business should take heed.
Employers need to offer more and better skills training opportunities to UK workers.
Businesses should also do more to attract some of the four million UK-born people who are either looking for work or would like to work more hours (see our paper).
High levels of immigration may have had a negative effect on the availability of full time employment for the UK born and thus on their stability of employment and security of earnings.