BRITAIN'S NEED FOR IMMIGRANTS

Amid the media shrill about "bogus" asylum seekers it has been forgotten that the UK, along with the rest of the developed world, has a need for migrant workers to solve its labour market shortfalls.

Since the start of last month the UK has had a new system for dealing with asylum seekers. Those who apply for asylum at the port of entry and otherwise would be destitute are given vouchers worth o36.54 per week for a single adult aged 25 and over. They are also offered accommodation, on a no-choice basis, away from London and the South East. Meanwhile lorry drivers found carrying people with no legal right to enter the UK face a fine of £2,000 per person.

Immigration minister Barbara Roche says that the government wants "to welcome people in genuine fear of persecution" but has introduced these new tougher arrangements because it also wants to "discourage unfounded claimants from setting out for Britain in the first place." As the minister explained to the House of Commons on 23 January this year, the rules are aimed at "deterring would-be economic migrants from making unfounded asylum applications". The government wants to distinguish between those facing persecution and "those who merely seek economic betterment".

However, those seeking economic betterment are not always so unwelcome. Just a few days before the new stricter asylum rules came into force, the chancellor of the exchequer declared in his Budget speech that "today we are introducing new rules for work permits in areas of highly skilled information technology, where there is a global shortage." In other words the government is making it easier for some would-be migrants to enter the UK because their skills are needed.

The changes to the work permit rules, which are operated by the Department for Education and Employment rather than the Home Office, include: an increase in the maximum length of a work permit from four to five years, making it easier for existing work permit holders to extend their stay; and improvements in the way that potential skill shortages are identified. The government is even handing over the issuing of some work permits to multinational companies on an experimental basis. For a trial period multinationals will be able to "self-certify" rather than apply for work permits for employees transferring within their operations.

The clear contrast in the treatment given to the different groups seeking to enter the UK reflects the fact that in some occupations there is already competition between countries for immigrants.

Information technology (IT) workers are one example. Germany is also short of IT specialists, and in February German chancellor Gerhard Schr"der announced that his government was intending to cover a shortage of 30,000 workers by giving out work permits to non-EU nationals. In the first year some 10,000 are to be made available with the specialists expected to come largely from India, Russia and China.

The USA also has a programme allowing "foreign professionals" to enter the USA to work. Again a high proportion of these are IT specialists and in the year to March 2000 the number of the so-called "H-1B" visas which could be issued under this programme was increased from 65,000 to 115,000.

The idea of special programmes to attract highly skilled workers is not new. Australia and Canada have operated their immigration policy to attract the specialists they need for many years. Canada, for example, has a points-based system for would-be migrants, which allocates precise scores according to skills and education.

However, a major recent study from the United Nations suggests that industrialised countries' need for immigrants goes far beyond highly skilled professionals. It points out that falling birth rates and longer life expectancy have led to ageing populations in most developed countries, who consequently need international migration to maintain population levels (see box).

The precise figures vary from country to country but for both the UK and the European Union the UN statisticians calculate that, to avoid a decline in population, inward migration would have to continue at the levels of the 1990s. However, to avoid a fall in the number of people of working age inward migration would have to be at twice these levels (see box).

There is already evidence that parts of the European economy depend heavily on the labour of recent arrivals, many of whom have no papers. Much of the fruit harvest in southern Spain is picked by workers from North Africa and Eastern Europe. There are estimated to be some 60,000 workers from Poland in the German construction industry. And in Greece almost a fifth of all those working in agriculture are migrants. A new assessment from the International Labour Office (ILO) argues that "industrial countries will probably have an irreducible requirement in the years ahead for the kind of employment that immigrants are willing to undertake"

If the pull is there so too is the push. The number of those wishing to migrate is likely to increase. The ILO document points out that, while the "fundamental cause of international migration is a gap in living standards between one country and another", it takes more than that to make people move. Political and economic disruption are key triggers for migration and these have occurred on a large scale in recent years. Political and economic change in central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, for example, has produced large numbers of migrants. Some two million ethnic Germans moved from the former Soviet Union to Germany over the seven years 1989-1996 and there are large but less well documented movements of people within central and eastern Europe itself. The ILO study argues that increased migration is linked to growing globalisation as more and more people depend on a global economy, which is both "more dynamic" but also "more unstable". For example, the free trade agreement in north America, which gives US grain easier access to Mexico, will lead to cheaper food prices, but the competition will destroy the livelihood of tens of thousands of peasant farmers who will leave the land and may seek a future in the USA.

The impact of this instability - "shaking people loose from their communities" - means that "migration is likely to increase rather than decrease", according to the ILO.

A number of European states have recognised these realities and have offered a mechanism for those who are already in the country to regularise their status even if they have entered illegally. Italy, Spain, Belgium and Greece have all introduced measures of this sort. In Spain, where the process is currently underway, the unions are heavily involved in providing assistance to migrants seeking to gain legal status. One of the main union confederations, the CCOO, has opened 129 offices with 300 staff specifically to help migrant workers.

Elsewhere in Europe governments have been reluctant to go down this path. But, as the ILO document notes, "there is little doubt that . migration pressures will rise in the decades ahead". The whole world has been pitched into the competition of the free market. But "in a world of winners and losers, the losers do not simply disappear, they seek somewhere else to go".

The problem of ageing populations

The United Nations report, Replacement migration: is it a solution to declining and ageing populations?, shows how lower birth rates and increasingly long life spans have resulted in an ageing population in most developed countries. In the 15 states of the European Union, for example, the number of live births per woman had fallen from a peak of 2.69 in 1960-65 to 1.5 by 1990-95 and average life expectancy had increased from 67.0 years in 1950-50 to 76.5 years in 1990-95. As a result, whereas only 9.5% of the population was 65 or over in 1950, by 1995 this had risen to 15.5%.

The situation in the UK is close to the EU average. The number of live births per woman has fallen to 1.78 (1990-95) and average life expectancy has increased to 76.2 years. As a result while 10.7% of the population was 65 or over in 1950 by 1995 this had increased to 15.9%.

The UN study then looks at how these ratios might change in the future on the basis of a number of assumptions. It makes the point that changes in birth rates, assuming they occur, take a long time to have an effect, and that "only international migration could be instrumental in addressing population decline and ageing in the short to medium term".

It shows that with no inward migration both the EU and the UK face a future where the population is both smaller and on average considerably older. In the EU overall, no inward migration would result in a 17% fall in the total population, from 375 million now to 311 million in 2050. In total 29.7% of the EU population would be aged 65 or over by that time. The situation in the UK is slightly different but the trends are the same. With no inward migration the total population would fall by less, only 6% to 55.6 million in 2050, down from 58.8 million currently. However, the number of those aged 65 and over would be well above present levels at 25% in 50 years.

The report examines what levels of migration would be necessary to maintain current population levels. It suggests that the situation is virtually the same for both the EU and the UK. In both, the "number of migrants needed to prevent a decline in the total population is roughly comparable to the levels of migration in the 1990s.

However, if the aim were to avoid a decline in the number of people of working age, defined as those aged 15-64, then in both the EU and the UK the number of migrants would need to be at "about twice the level of the last decade".

Posted workers' rights: page 27