Will tighter immigration control lead to ‘wage growth’ across UK?

Higher wages for UK workers should be one of the consequences of the proposed immigration shake-up, according to Conservative ministers, but is that outcome likely?

Under plans outlined this week for a points-based visa system, overseas staff would effectively be banned from taking low-paid jobs in Britain.

The move has been widely condemned in Scotland, where there is already a declining and ageing population.

But Home Secretary Priti Patel said: “We have over eight million people – 20% of the workforce – aged between 16 and 64 that are economically inactive right now.

“It is down to businesses to work well with the government and join us in investing in people, levelling up across the UK so we can have wage growth across the entire country.”

There has long been an argument that ending the influx of cheap labour, which was not possible while the UK was in the EU, would force employers to push up pay rates in order to attract the workers who remain.

The Migration Advisory Committee found in 2018 that there was some evidence that immigration did depress the wages of lower-skilled workers while inflating those of higherskilled workers.

However, it added that the impact was generally small.

Far from the prospect of higher wages, unions have raised fears about a potential acceleration of a move towards automation in industry, which was another aim of the UK Government.

Diana Holland, general secretary of the Unite trade union, said: “Workers, be they in hospitality or agriculture, will be distressed to hear a government minister actively encourage employers to replace them with robots with no sense of the investment and time managing this change will take, and patients and their families will be concerned about what that means for social care and NHS patients.”

Investing in higher staff pay and new technology would also obviously cost businesses a lot of money, and would be beyond the means of some.

Social care providers are expected to be one of the hardest hit sectors under the plans, and they often rely in part on government funding.

CONCERNED: Dietrich Pannwitz – who established his own forestry business specialising in woodland and land management across the region in 2004 – says all forestry workers are skilled and no matter where they come from are paid at least the minimum wage and often, as in Sylvestrus’ case, the living wage