"No limits" immigration contributes to housing shortage

[Fungus]

1/ How can there be increasing employment to disguise unemployment?
2/ I'm guessing you don't remember the last government? Michael Howard started the whole immigration mess, I don't remember his sensible policies?



FFS there are some idiots about these days

1) Easy. Employment is increasing. Unemployment is increasing. The former is due to immigrants filling low paid jobs + plumbers etc. The second is due to UK citizens being displaced from jobs by immigrants willing to work on lower pay. As the In Business on R4 said, was are in danger of becoming a low wage, low skills employer.

2) How did Howard start the immigration mess? The current problem is because we decided to have zero/zilch barriers to immigration from the new Eastern European countries. Most other EU countries have barriers, though they will come down in a few years.

"FFS there are some idiots about these days"

Don't be too hard on yourself.

[Fungus]

Agree with Noddy. Where's the evidence to back up these hypotheses?
And not sure that immigrants are the cause of rising prices. As I've pointed out before, house price rises are a global phenomenon and seem uncorrelated to the level of immigration to a country e.g. cf Netherlands and Germany

House prices are rising due to a shortage of housing. The main reasons are a) a tendency for people to live on their own and b) immigration. According to reliable sources, we will need about 50K new houses each year just to keep pace with the current rate of immigration. Fat chance.

[BobTheCrate]

... this would surely manifest itself in the unemployment figures.

BBC

LibDems

Andrew Oswald (Warwick Uni)

[ALM]

Agree with Noddy. Where's the evidence to back up these hypotheses?
And not sure that immigrants are the cause of rising prices. As I've pointed out before, house price rises are a global phenomenon and seem uncorrelated to the level of immigration to a country e.g. cf Netherlands and Germany

Immigration must surely have some effect on house prices. For example, the rental value of an average 3-Bed semi in zone 4 of NW London was around £900 in 2001. Demand for such properties has surged in recent years, partly as a result of massive local authority waiting lists. Having gone down the buy-to-let route, I can confirm these lists are largely composed of latvian, russian, polish, albanian, afghan and iraqi people etc. The rental value of a 3-Bed semi is now £1400. This 40% rise in rental value must have some effect on house prices.

[wendigo100]

The government has denied claims its approach to immigration is the cause of a housing crisis, saying more single households are to blame.

It comes after Migrationwatch said projected housing demand figures were based on the assumption that net UK immigration would be 65,000 a year. From 1996 to 2004 the actual level averaged 140,000 a year.

Single households might indeed contribute to the housing shortage, but the government is implying that, therefore, immigration is not. This is obfuscation or stupidity.

Where does the government think that the 140,000 immigrants every year are living? Are they all inhabiting trees, or holes they have dug themselves in the ground? Or perhaps they all pop home to their countries or origin every night after work.

Housing shortages are caused by many things, but immigration is the only one they can actually do something about, and they are not only failing but making the situation worse.

[Numptycorner]

1) Easy. Employment is increasing. Unemployment is increasing. The former is due to immigrants filling low paid jobs + plumbers etc. The second is due to UK citizens being displaced from jobs by immigrants willing to work on lower pay. As the In Business on R4 said, was are in danger of becoming a low wage, low skills employer.

2) How did Howard start the immigration mess? The current problem is because we decided to have zero/zilch barriers to immigration from the new Eastern European countries. Most other EU countries have barriers, though they will come down in a few years.

"FFS there are some idiots about these days"

Don't be too hard on yourself.

Excuse me you and your ilk, would have us belive all immigrants come here to live on Benefits. Now they come here to enter the tax system! Make your bloody mind up! If there are jobs available then they are available to all. But hang on we don't need immigrants, erm yes we do erm no we don't



You are a Buffoon my friend

[ALM]

BBC

LibDems

Andrew Oswald (Warwick Uni)

You appear to be contradicting yourself. You said earlier:

How many times do we hear New Liebour crowing on about, "Never have we had higher employment than now". It is probably true.

Are you saying unemplyment is going up or down?

[Mordac]

Excuse me you and your ilk, would have us belive all immigrants come here to live on Benefits. Now they come here to enter the tax system! Make your bloody mind up! If there are jobs available then they are available to all. But hang on we don't need immigrants, erm yes we do erm no we don't



You are a Buffoon my friend

You are confusing the "asylum seekers" argument with the EU immigration argument. Suddenly opening the UK economy to hundreds of thousands of migrant workers with no thought for the consequences is to say the least daft.

[BobTheCrate]

You appear to be contradicting yourself. You said earlier :.. Are you saying unemplyment is going up or down?

I am not disputing that employment is going up. I am saying that unemployment is also going up.

I'm not talking %ages because as a percentage of the total of course they both have to add up to 100%. If one increase 5% the other has to decrease 5%

What I am saying is that the physical numbers of both are increasing. But the Gov't only crows on about the increasing numbers of employed.

[ALM]

I am not disputing that employment is going up. I am saying that unemployment is also going up.

I'm not talking %ages because as a percentage of the total of course they both have to add up to 100%. If one increase 5% the other has to decrease 5%

What I am saying is that the physical numbers of both are increasing. But the Gov't only crows on about the increasing numbers of employed.

I see. This would require the number of employed and unemployed to rise simultaneously. Is this actually happening though? Do you have a source to back this up?