Employment and Immigration (again)

For those still awake on the subject, you may remember a question was asked of the Labour Government. A simple question. Of the new 2m+ jobs quoted since 1997, how many have been taken by incumbent citizens?

Of which the first answer was a material majority, the remaining 800,000 taken by immigrants. However, red faces all round when Jackie Smith had to apologise on 30th October when 800,000 was revised to 1.1m.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7068291.stm

But the slightly non-mainstream "daily politics" didnt think this was the end of the story...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/7069140.stm

who pointed out quite rightly that 1.5m+ may well be defined as immigrants as the Labour figures suggested that someone who enterered the country in, say, 2002 and was given citizenship was not an immigrant (!)

Since then, the newly set-up UK statistics comission has quietly gone about dismantling most of the New Labour new figures. To no great fanfare in the pre-Christmas rush they said this;


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The government previously claimed that just 800,000 of 2.7 million jobs available to all ages had gone to foreign citizens. Employment minister Caroline Flint then apologised for this and revised the 800,000 figure to 1.1 million - still less than half the total number of jobs.

By using conflicting methods of estimating employment and population levels, only counting foreign citizens as migrants, and including jobs taken by retired people, the government gave a clouded view of the picture.

http://www.statscom.org.uk/uploads/files/other/foreign%20workers%20briefing%20note%20Dec%202007.pdf

Let me summarise their findings which take into account all people arriving after 1997;

The figures... tell a clear story. Of a total increase in employment between 1997 and 2007 of about 2.1 million (counting all over 16s)... the actual proportion of the employment increase accounted for by foreigners/migrants is over 80%.


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So there we have it. When New Labour tell the general public that they have created 2m+ jobs during their 10-year tenure, bet your mortgage that the average listener doesnt expect that between 8-9 out of 10 were taken by people new to the country. And remember that this government, with the full weight of the public service behind them, managed to get the question wrong. Twice.

Incompetence? Maybe, but perhaps the real answer wasnt all that pleasant and Labour - as often in the past - hoped to get away with a convenient lie and avoid an inconvenient truth. The truth that through a sustained decade of global economic growth we have managed to entrench more than 5m british nationals in a situation of welfare-supported unemployment and the only material way we have grown employment is via immigration.

New Deal? Not flash, just Gordon? British jobs for British workers?

And now that the going is getting tough. What now then Gordon?