> The proof is in the pudding: "we can't find local workers willing to work for these low wages so we'll import them from abroad".
Everywhere in world there are labour shortages, because we just ended lockdowns 3 months ago. In other places they are blaming the shortage on the young being lazy or on unemployment benefits, with the same scientific rigour. So I’m still waiting for a proof (not a pun or an anecdote) that immigration reduces salaries.
> A lot of EU immigrants come to London to work in tech/finance because they offer higher wages than pretty much anywhere on the continent (I was one of them).
Which means that EU nationals living in the UK earn more than the locals, so they can’t be driving salaries down. Unless you hypothesise a fantasy counterfactual where Jack deChav, who’s now an underpaid bartender, would have become a software developer and would be earning 6 digits if only Carlos de Perros, S/W developer from Malaga, didn’t steal his job.
> But the working class is pretty far removed from the effect of professional-class immigration.
Whatever the working class is in the UK, if they believe that immigration reduces salaries, they are far removed from any modern notion of truth.
> The UK has many other structural problems so collapsing the whole Brexit discussion into one dimension is a bit of an over-simplification, though if you asked me to do the PCA, I'd say the main cause was "protest vote". (Pre-BJ governments weren't Euro-sceptic.)
I’m not collapsing anything into anything. I’ve read a false statement “immigration reduces salaries” and I replied to it. Incidentally the UK has been playing with “hostile environments”, euro-skepticism and Brexit and yet real salaries are still below 2008.
>So I’m still waiting for a proof (not a pun or an anecdote) that immigration reduces salaries.
And what would that be? A study linking both while accounting for every other factor? I don't think it's even possible to do such a thing.
>Which means that EU nationals living in the UK earn more than the locals, so they can’t be driving salaries down. Unless you hypothesise a fantasy counterfactual where Jack deChav, who’s now an underpaid bartender, would have become a software developer and would be earning 6 digits if only Carlos de Perros, S/W developer from Malaga, didn’t steal his job.
There is competition even in software development, it doesn't take anyone to be a bartender for competition to cause a wage drop, moreover the reality is way more stark when you look at jobs that aren't as cushy as software development. A Spanish waiter is probably used to lower salaries and is probably more dependent on his job than an English one that has a support network in his country, his chances to unionize are also lower. We see it all the time with immigrants from low income countries.
I can imagine how immigration can lead to economic growth and salary growth as a result, but I find it impossible that the race to the bottom caused in low-income jobs is worth for them at all, if anything the economic growth is caused by this low-cost labor.
> And what would that be? A study linking both while accounting for every other factor? I don't think it's even possible to do such a thing.
What’s the point of saying something if you think that it’s impossible to prove?
> There is competition even in software development, it doesn't take anyone to be a bartender for competition to cause a wage drop, moreover the reality is way more stark when you look at jobs that aren't as cushy as software development. A Spanish waiter is probably used to lower salaries and is probably more dependent on his job than an English one that has a support network in his country, his chances to unionize are also lower. We see it all the time with immigrants from low income countries.
The number of software developers in the UK kept going up until the beginning of lockdowns, but salaries went up instead of going down. How’s that possible if more people mean lower wages?
Is there any evidence of Spanish bartenders pushing bartender salaries down?
> I can imagine how immigration can lead to economic growth and salary growth as a result, but I find it impossible that the race to the bottom caused in low-income jobs is worth for them at all, if anything the economic growth is caused by this low-cost labor.
Is there any evidence of this “race to the bottom [..] in low-income jobs”? Is there any evidence of it being caused by immigration?
Sorry, I don't agree. If the supply of labour increases without any consequent increase in demand, then one would expect to see the price of labour reduce, right?
That's what econ 101 would say, right? You're the one making the claim that it doesn't. If such a claim is self evident, then you should be able to produce some kind of reasoning as to why it is so, no?
> Sorry, I don't agree. If the supply of labour increases without any consequent increase in demand, then one would expect to see the price of labour reduce, right?
Which is only true if the foreigner in question teleports themself to their country of origin whenever they are not working. Even if they got all their food delivered from Poorland, there would be an increased demand for deliveries.
> That's what econ 101 would say, right? You're the one making the claim that it doesn't. If such a claim is self evident, then you should be able to produce some kind of reasoning as to why it is so, no?
No, unless we assume that workers don't consume anything and are perfect substitutes, if there is perfect information in the labour market, etc...
None of these assumptions holds true, so the impact of immigration on wages can't be estimated like the impact of potato overproduction on the potato market. So it becomes an empirical question, and evidence suggests that no country experienced long term wage compression because of immigration.
Everywhere in world there are labour shortages, because we just ended lockdowns 3 months ago. In other places they are blaming the shortage on the young being lazy or on unemployment benefits, with the same scientific rigour. So I’m still waiting for a proof (not a pun or an anecdote) that immigration reduces salaries.
> A lot of EU immigrants come to London to work in tech/finance because they offer higher wages than pretty much anywhere on the continent (I was one of them).
Which means that EU nationals living in the UK earn more than the locals, so they can’t be driving salaries down. Unless you hypothesise a fantasy counterfactual where Jack deChav, who’s now an underpaid bartender, would have become a software developer and would be earning 6 digits if only Carlos de Perros, S/W developer from Malaga, didn’t steal his job.
> But the working class is pretty far removed from the effect of professional-class immigration.
Whatever the working class is in the UK, if they believe that immigration reduces salaries, they are far removed from any modern notion of truth.
> The UK has many other structural problems so collapsing the whole Brexit discussion into one dimension is a bit of an over-simplification, though if you asked me to do the PCA, I'd say the main cause was "protest vote". (Pre-BJ governments weren't Euro-sceptic.)
I’m not collapsing anything into anything. I’ve read a false statement “immigration reduces salaries” and I replied to it. Incidentally the UK has been playing with “hostile environments”, euro-skepticism and Brexit and yet real salaries are still below 2008.