Britain debates if immigration is profitable

Headlines ahead of the New Year portrayed a country of job seeking-Britons brushed aside by Bulgarians and overrun by Romanians.

"See EU soon," wrote the Sun. "You can't stop us coming," portended the Daily Mail two newspapers that have made fretting about immigration and its effect on Britain a mission.

While the prospect of masses of Romanians and Bulgarians storming the shores of Britain on January 1 was unlikely, as veteran EU members have not fully opened their labor markets to the newcomers, such worries stem from events of the past few years.

After the last EU expansion in 2004, when Poland and nine other nations joined, Britain was one of a handful of EU nations that opened its doors and saw a flood of more than half a million newcomers taking jobs as builders, food servers and clerks in London and across the country confounding official reassurances.

Should countries like Britain want hundreds of thousands of Polish migrants? Many economists say yes, because they make labor markets more efficient and create economic growth. But workers see competitors who keep salaries low.

The British fears about potential Romanian and Bulgarian emigres is part of a wider debate about globalization: Is economic freedom ultimately to everyone's benefit?

The tumult in Britain was stoked on Wednesday by a report by a conservative think tank claiming immigration is of almost negligible benefit to the average citizen. And while critics argued that the report by MigrationWatch lacked empirical heft, this failed to quell the debate.

"Immigration can be a real benefit to the country, but only if it is properly controlled," said David Davis, the shadow home secretary for the Conservatives.

The report from Migrationwatch said the financial benefits of immigrants amounted to less than a few pence enough, perhaps, for each Briton to buy a Mars candy bar each month.

"Of course many immigrants make a useful contribution to the economy but taken in total the economic benefit is at best marginal," said the group's Chairman Sir Andrew Green. "The main beneficiaries are the immigrants themselves who are able to send home about 10 million pounds ($19.5 million) a day, not the host nation."

But some people disagreed. "Migrant workers fill an important gap in the UK's growing labor market," said Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, Britain's biggest labor group. Barber added that EU citizens from outside Britain have helped increase growth and fill the jobs that Britons won't take.

Source: China Daily/agencies