Now You See Them, Now You Don’t

 

 

Bold claims about how little effect the lifting of labour market restrictions will have on the numbers of Romanians and Bulgarians working in the UK over the next year are premature.

Claims of this sort, based on a single quarter of evidence from one source, are nearly as risky as the predictions last year that lifting work restrictions would lead to a sudden “flood” of A2 migrants.     Oxford University’s Migration Observatory

 

 

The BBC has been playing up the significance of the latest immigration figures released by the ONS which show a fall in the number of Romanians and Bulgarians in work in the UK in the last Quarter compared to the previous one….despite the annual figures showing a significant increase.

Five Live has been reporting that the ‘alarmist’ predictions by ‘some politicians’ (UKIP)  and some ‘campaign groups’ (Migration Watch) have been proved wrong.

Here is Nick Robinson’s dismissive take on the figures:

So much for those predictions of a flood of immigrants coming from Romania and Bulgaria once the door to the UK was opened

 

 And Mark Easton’s:

MPs and newspapers warned of a “flood” of hundreds of thousands of poor Romanians and Bulgarians who would strain our welfare system and public services. It was an argument that played directly into anxieties about immigration and the influence of the EU.

But today’s figures, the first official estimate of workers from Romania and Bulgaria since the transitional employment restrictions were removed on the so-called A2 countries in January, suggest there has been no flood. If anything, the reverse.

 

So some ‘bold claims’ based on one quarter’s data made by the BBC….‘premature and risky’?

 

But today is also a good day to bury other figures which are good for the government but which shouldn’t be forgotten.  In the same ONS report we have these figures for employment:
1.57 million people were employed in the National Health Service, up 13,000 from September 2013 and up 6,000 from a year earlier.

1.52 million people were employed in education, up 8,000 from September 2013, and up 44,000 from a year earlier.

Back to immigration.

 

Was Migration Watch wrong?

This is what they predicted as the likely annual immigration figures:

As in 2004, there is no purely statistical basis on which one could estimate the likely future flows of migration from Romania and Bulgaria. It is a matter of judgement, taking into account the factors outlined above. Our view is that they are likely to add between 30 and 70,000 to our population in each of the next five years of which about half will appear in the immigration statistics.

So our central estimate is that immigration from these two countries will add 50,000 a year to the UK population for the next five years of which about half is likely to be captured in the immigration statistics.

 

In other words they were pretty much spot on….the statistics show that there has been an increase of 26,000 Romanians and Bulgarians coming to the UK over the past year…..so as suggested half of their predicted figure was captured by the official statistics….and the statistics only tell us who is employed not the total number of people coming here.

 

The ONS itself admits this:

“These figures will not show how many Romanians and Bulgarians arrived to work in Britain between January and March this year,” said an ONS spokesman. “They only show how many were in employment during that period. They do not show when they arrived in Britain.”

In other words you could have had an influx of immigrants as the fugures don’t say when they arrived.

The ONS also states that not all immigrants admit their country of origin:

These UK and non-UK estimates do not sum exactly to the total number of people in employment because some people do not state their country of birth in their Labour Force Survey interviews.

 

What does the Oxford University’s Migration Observatory have to say about the new figures?:

Today’s (14 May 2014) new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has shown a small reduction (a drop of about 4,000) in the number of Romanian- and Bulgarian-born people employed in the UK in the first three months of 2014 – the period immediately after restrictions on the employment of migrants from these countries ended.

It is tempting to conclude that the new Labour Force Survey (LFS) data – showing that the opposite has happened and that actually, fewer Romanian and Bulgarian people are now working in the UK than at the end of last year – proves these stories wrong. But it is far too early to tell.

Bold claims about how little effect the lifting of labour market restrictions will have on the numbers of Romanians and Bulgarians working in the UK over the next year are premature.

Claims of this sort, based on a single quarter of evidence from one source, are nearly as risky as the predictions last year that lifting work restrictions would lead to a sudden “flood” of A2 migrants.

 

So the reality is that Migration Watch have been proved correct and anything up to 50,000 Romanians and Bulgarians have probably entered the country…half not showing up on the statistics.

The full picture can’t possibly be known as to the effect, if any, of the ending of work restrictions until this year has ended….as you can see from the chart the June to September period there were 135,000 Romanians and Bulgarians in work…this leapt to 144,000 the next Quarter, then dropping to 140,000 for the latest quarter…the surge in immigration occured before the new rules were put in place….and could quite as easily go up again.

 

 

The BBC has been presenting this and talk about immigration control in general as Right Wing scaremongering but how true is that?

 

Here are Labour’s words of warning about immigration spoken only today:

Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the government had to do more “to address people’s legitimate concerns”.

She said: “Ministers aren’t doing enough to stop employers and agencies exploiting cheap migrant labour, particularly from Eastern Europe, to undercut wages and jobs.”

 

Here is Labour again:

Immigration figures to drop 20,000 as Home Office ‘massages’ numbers

Labour accused Mrs May of trying to “fix” the net migration figures.
David Hanson, the shadow immigration minister, said: “This is a desperate attempt to fiddle figures from an increasingly desperate Home Secretary.
“David Cameron promised his Government would cut net migration to the tens of thousands and he has failed. Now Theresa May wants to fix the figures brazenly, trying to take the British public for fools. If the Home Secretary thinks cheating the public is the way forward, it’s this Government that’s the fool.”

 

Here is Labour’s own think tank the IPPR telling us of the problems that immigration brings:

In transition: Romanian and Bulgarian migration to the UK

The report draws three key conclusions about the likely shape of migration from Romania and Bulgaria:
It is likely that patterns of migration from Romania and Bulgaria will be different to those seen after the A8 countries joined the EU in 2004.
However, the impacts of future migration from Romania and Bulgaria will be similar to other flows from eastern Europe.
Romanian and Bulgarian migration remains a source of worry for the public, but this has been exacerbated rather than alleviated by political interventions.
The main challenges that arise as the result of new A2 migration flows are likely to relate to increased demand for housing and public services, as well as new arrivals’ language needs. Over time, these migrants will accrue more entitlements to welfare, which needs to be planned for. There are also some specific issues that will need to be tackled at both national and local levels, such as the exploitation of workers from these countries and the integration of Roma migrants.

 

And look here’s the BBC itself reporting that:

EU migrants: Public services ‘must prepare’
23 December 2013

Ministers should take practical steps to help public services cope with the arrival of Bulgarian and Romanian migrants, a think tank has urged.
There should be more funds for housing, schools and policing, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said.
Bulgarians and Romanians have been able to work in the UK only in certain circumstances, but EU restrictions on movement will be lifted on 1 January.
The institute said practical help was needed to deal with increased demands on the privately-rented housing sector and on police who may have to deal with more incidents of anti-social behaviour by people unaware of UK laws and customs.
It also called for extra translators in schools and health centres.
It said there should be a “dedicated” pot of money to pay for the measures, from visa fees and the European Social Fund.

 

So is the BBC ‘scaremongering’ as well, and Labour and the IPPR?

Seems that it is only Right Wing politicians, newspapers and ‘pressure groups’ who get accused of that by the BBC.