i must be honest i have mixed feelings about this.. living in Herefordshire we have got a huge number of imigrant workers mostly Eastern European working on the many fruit farms here. the trouble is most British people dont want to “pick fruit” for a living, as we seem to think this sort of work is below our standards. so as the saying goes “someone has to do it”. but walking around the high street on a Saturday afternoon and every other person you see speaks a foreign language worrys me a little. i think there should be more controls over the numbers and make sure most of our Eastern European freinds return home and help there Countrys healing process.
Quite right.
The government reckons there are around 450,000 people from the eastern block living over here. Of which 97% are in full time employment.
This does open up a couple debates.
Firstly the majority of jobs are in the hotel/restaurant business or the more meanial jobs like meat packing etc. These are jobs that alot of English people would rather not have to do, but a job is a job to someone who needs one.
As the average wage in england (or indeed the minimum wage) is alot higher than in Poland, then this makes an attractive offer for our Polish Friends.
An employer is more likely to want to pay someone £5.50/hour than more.
This leads onto the second debate.
Does the government make it too easy for English people to claim benefits, consider an average person getting around £100/week plus rent paid plus poll tax etc it’s no wonder people dont want to work for little more per week. (This isnt aimed at people who genuinely cant or are unable to to get jobs).
We do need people to help run and keep business’ in the U.K. and if using foreign workers helps then so be it. It has to be better than seeing all our industries moving abroad.
That said it does all place a strain on our NHS srevices etc, when we are struggling to cope with the amount of people born here, let alone 1,000,000 or so more.
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