Originally Posted by
Macca
don't really buy that since we already had a surplus of unskilled workers amongst the indigenous personnel going back to at least the late 70s. The problem was that for those with children getting an unskilled job meant they were worse off than on benefits.
Bringing in millions of unskilled labour from abroad prevented wages rising for unskilled workers, which is the only other possible outcome when there is a labour shortage.
The problem is when all those imported unskilled workers start having children and discover that, since unskilled wages are still too low, that they are better off on benefits. This is why the welfare bill is now a third of government spending.
Flips side to all that is if you don't increase the unskilled labour pool, unskilled wages rise and the cost of everything rises as a result. Personally I think that the lesser of the two evils. Like most things there's no simple solution, there's probably not even a complex solution.