Published by A SPACE WHERE RESEARCH, EVIDENCE AND CRITIQUE CAN CREATE POSITIVE SOCIAL CHANGE Home Global social challenges Impact Publishing world Podcast Follow this blog Search #StandAgainstPoverty A migrant, a Brit and a robot walk into a bar: who will get a job? Migration and the state of the UK economy are once again dominating the political agenda and are among the most heatedly debated issues in the run up to the 4 July General Election. However, the quality of debates is questionable, with politicians rehashing old tropes about migrants undercutting wages, the need for economically inactive British people to be urgently reintegrated into the labour force, as well as the importance of improving economic growth and productivity through automation. With UK annual net migration pushing 700,000, discussions around how many migrant workers are actually needed and whether the UK economy has developed a chronic dependence on foreign labour have been reanimated. One notable post-Brexit difference is that non-EU work-related immigration now significantly outpaces EU workers (925,000 to 151,000, respectively). We note that there is a long history of viewing migration policy as an extension of economic and fiscal policies. As early as the year 2000, the then New Labour government carried out a comprehensive cost–benefit assessment of the impact of international migration on the British economy and made steps towards opening the labour market to higher skilled and entrepreneurial migrants. A lasting legacy of that era is that successive British governments have maintained a strict utilitarian view of migration: if you work, pay taxes and don’t use public services, you’re a good migrant. If you are an asylum seeker, an irregular migrant, or you stop being economically productive, you’re a bad migrant. A key policy objective for the 2010 Coalition government – and beyond – was the sustainable reduction of annual net migration to below 100,000. However, a clear rationale for why net migration above 100,000 was bad and below 100,000 was good was never provided. Beyond that, successive Conservative governments have demonstrably failed to hit this target and the 2019 government under Boris Johnson abandoned it altogether. In the run up to the July 2024 election, bringing down net migration from historic high levels is dominating the political agenda, yet no major party is committing to setting a specific target, likely in recognition of the fact that such a target would prove impossible to meet. Work-shy Brits Another key debate is about domestic skill shortages, alleged overreliance on the welfare system and insufficient participation in the labour market. While the ONS estimates that as of spring 2024, the UK unemployment rate was 4.3 per cent, which is below the EU average of 6 per cent, the levels of UK economic inactivity (referring to those who are neither employed nor unemployed, because they are retired, caring for family or studying, for example) were above 22 per cent and increasing. Both Conservatives and Labour agree that millions of economically inactive Brits are to be re- and upskilled and urgently reintegrated into the labour market. " # $ One of the key case studies in our book focuses on the 2020 Pick for Britain campaign, which aimed to enlist domestic workers (eg. furloughed workers, those made unemployed by the pandemic, students) for fruit and vegetable harvesting. Our analysis showed that despite some initial enthusiasm, very few British workers were offered contracts to work on farms, with many people raising concerns about the lack of transparency and flexibility in the recruitment process. The campaign saw failures across the board: no real investment or rollout of automation technologies, not enough migrant workers, and not enough British workers willing to pick produce. Continued failure to ensure safe working conditions and better pay in sectors with acute worker shortages (agriculture, social care), coupled with the continued ad hoc approach to low-skilled and low-paid migration after Brexit has made it all but impossible for these sectors to recruit and retain either domestic or foreign workers. A post-Brexit technological utopia Against the backdrop of alleged overreliance on foreign labour and high levels of domestic economic inactivity, one of the more emancipatory Brexit promises was that it would create a historic opportunity to boost economic growth and productivity by embracing labour automation – evident in 2017 claims by Andrea Leadsom that robots, not migrants, will pick raspberries, as well as Rishi Sunak’s 2022 claim that the NHS should embrace robot workers to improve efficiency and growth. The utopic vision is that the robotisation of labour will decrease the dependency on cheap migrant labour, automate all undesirable jobs and minimise demands for higher wages and better working conditions. However, the UK is the least automated G7 nation, and its economy is characterised by low productivity and low levels of investment in AI and automation technologies. In fact, data from the 2020 World Robotics yearbook show that the UK is not just lagging behind other major European economies such as Germany and France, but is also behind the rapidly developing economies of Poland and the Czech Republic. The annual installation of industrial robots, according to the International Federation of Robotics 2022 report, places China in first place followed by traditional industrial powers of the global economy such as Japan, the US, South Korea, Germany and France. The UK does not appear in the top 15 countries for yearly robot installations, falling behind Spain, Turkey and Thailand. The most recent World Robotics report (2023) recorded 553,052 industrial robot installations around the world. By region, 73 per cent of all newly deployed robots were installed in Asia, 15 per cent in Europe and 10 per cent in the Americas. The European Union remains the world’s second largest market for robots with 70,781 units installed, with key positions being held by Germany (36 per cent), Italy (16 per cent) and France (10 per cent). As of 2022, the UK stood at around 9 per cent, with 2,534 industrial robots, which is less than a tenth of Germany’s. Automation and immigration will be pivotal issues for the next UK government. Against the backdrop of unprecedented high levels of immigration, the discourse of and aspiration for an automated economy remains an important disciplinary mechanism used by policy makers to address anxieties around social cohesion, work ethic and low productivity. Kostas Maronitis is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Leeds Trinity University. Denny Pencheva is Lecturer in European Politics and Public Policy at University College London. Robots and Immigrants by Kostas Maronitis and Denny Pencheva is available on the Bristol University website. Order here for £26.99. Bristol University Press/Policy Press newsletter subscribers receive a 25% discount – sign up here. Follow Transforming Society so we can let you know when new articles publish. The views and opinions expressed on this blog site are solely those of the original blog post authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the Policy Press and/or any/all contributors to this site. Image credit: Miana FC via Unsplash Sign up to our mailing list Write for us Contact Us Terms and Conditions Related posts Global neoliberalism is allowing human trafficking to flourish Good vs bad migrants ! by Denny Pencheva and Kostas Maronitis 19th June 2024 About Values and ethos statement Privacy Policy Challenging primary school history curriculum knowledge Momentum is building for a Universal Basic Income Black America and fear: Race-based data as a tool for effective COVID-19 policy Renewed ways of thinking about and doing social work in a global context