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The Supply Of Labor Has Been Encouraged By The Uk Keeping Its Doors Open To ...

The supply of labor has been encouraged by the UK keeping its doors open to immigrant workers, after 8 members joined the European Union in 2004. The report also cited the expected growth rate to rise from 2.5% to 2.75%. However the report also cited that average earnings growth was not as active as many workers would like. The average earnings growth remained at just under 4%. However, the UK will probably continue with its policy to allow immigrant workers in because it will probably have ‘growth' high on its priority agenda.
Immigration and the UK Labour Market According to the Labour Government:
The Labour Government seems confident of the way that it has managed the immigration issue. This is with particular regard to the UK labour market and the impact immigration has had on vacancies for work available to UK residential population.
The UK government has demonstrated the rise in job vacancies between 2004 though there were around 0.5 million immigrants in the country during this period. They assert that when an economy works close to its full capacity, there is bound to be a shortage of labour. As opposed to importing labor, it is better to have immigrants that result in manageable shortage of labor. With importing labour, there is bound to be increased shortage of labor experienced. Therefore, immigrants are in this regard, good for the UK labour market (Angrist and Kugler, 2003, F303F330).
Also, the 600,000 immigrants in the UK account for just 2% of the total work force. This has little effect on the remaining majority, and the fact that there are many vacancies allows people to switch jobs, regardless of them being UK locals or immigrants.
According to the Labour government, among the total number of vacancies existing, only 25% of them are due to skilled labour shortage. In other words, there is more room to accommodate more skilled immigrant workers. Given that there will be more members joining the European Union, there will probably be few more skilled immigrants available in the UK labour market. Illustration 1 is interesting because it demonstrates a decrease in unemployment. The figures indicate a drop in unemployment between 2001 and 2004.
While illustration 1 points to overall unemployment drop, illustration 2 underscores the number of vacancies that existed during three-month work seasons in the UK. This helps to bring one to another consideration regarding UK employment. This refers to the seasonal work that requires workers to keep certain industries running. This issue will be addressed later in this paper.
The Labour government also highlights a very interesting point, and one that can be very significant in understanding the issue of the UK labour market. It asserts that immigrant workers are twice as much more likely to be unemployed in contrast with locals.


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