Will Straw takes issues with Fraser’s post on the matter of just how many “new” jobs have been filled by foreign-born workers. As Straw says, foreign-born is one metric, British-national another. If you measure these things by the latter yardstick then, apparently, 69% of new jobs in the last year have been filled by non-UK nationals. This is interesting and that is, evidently, a hefty percentage. (It would be interesting to see a regional breakdown of these figures too.)
The better and more important question is why businesses appear to favour employing foreigners. Because this is the better, more important question it’s the one that’s best left unasked. I don’t pretend to know the answer either. In some sectors a shortage of skills may be part of the answer. Similarly, the related problems of educational failure and welfare dependency must contribute something to the phenomenon.
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