In my small EU country, this has created a caste of low-paying jobs that only immigrants do, and the hiring process usually goes along "put out an ad, offer minimum pay" - "noone local wants to do that job for minimum wage" - "complain you can't get workers" - "get work visas for foreigners".
This would/could be mitigated by raising the minimum wage for foreign workers (eg., you need a cleaning lady, the pay for a foreign worker must be atleast 1.5x the average pay currently working cleaning ladies get, so they'll try to get a local for atleast 1.499x the average pay first and then if really desparate hire a foreigner).
We have plenty of the low-paying jobs that only immigrants do in the US as well.
Some are via temporary work visas, some are via undocumented immigrants. The fact that they are undocumented immigrants means that they have very few legal protections, which makes it a lot easier for employers to exploit them.
Now that's a good idea. Right now, there's "E-Verify", through which employers can verify immigration status. But it's not mandatory. Jobs that don't require E-Verify should have to pay at least 2x the state minimum wage.
Farmers who depend on exploiting cheap labor oppose this. They even have a lobby for that.[1] They'd be using slaves if they could get away with it.
> In my small EU country, this has created a caste of low-paying jobs that only immigrants do
This is flat out false. While it’s true that there’s a lot of internal migration from poorer EU countries to richer ones due to significantly higher pay for unskilled/low-skilled labour, almost none of the people taking them can be considered immigrants, because very few of them have the intention of long-term relocation. They all almost universally move for a couple of years to make and save some money and then return back to their countries.
And there absolutely are locals even in the richest EU countries doing minimum wage jobs. But they also aren’t doing them for long. There’s just a significantly larger pool of people willing to take them.
> very few of them have the intention of long-term relocation
Yep, and they all build huge houses in the balkans, that they then never visit, because they stay in austria/germany/switzerland/..., because after 30 years living abroad, they have noone left "back at home", their kids go to school in EU, and finished school there, and don't want to move back either, their doctors are there, their pensions are there, their friends are there, so they stay.
Sure, there are a few locals doing some minimum wage jobs, but on pretty much every construction site across europe (and especially the countries mentioned above), you'll be able to communicate using one of the ex-yugoslav languages.
The EU expansion where the poorest countries joined happened in 2004., and mass migration didn't really happen until the aftermath of 2008, so it's 15 years at most.
> they have noone left "back at home", their kids go to school in EU
This is not true for most. They have plenty of friends and extended family is back home.
> their pensions are there
You can collect your pension from one EU country in another.
> so they stay.
No idea about migration from Balkans, but it's provably false for migration from the Eastern EU members. Even to the English speaking countries (UK, Ireland), where the language barrier is less of an issue.
That's irrelevant then. It's significantly easier to return to your home country knowing that you could always go back to Germany etc without too much hassle.
For non-EU citizens/permanent residence holders (which is actually not as simple to acquire as it sounds) it's a far more difficult decision that it is for EU citizens.
In the extreme case of the United States, if you leave the US for more than 6 months as a green card holder without acquiring a re-entry permit (which is good for only up to 2 years. There's no way to leave the US for more than 2 years as a green card holder and to be able to return with any certainty)
And even worse, virtually all illegals in the US are inadmissible for 10 years after they leave the US, so there's no path to legal status for them at all. And if they have illegally re-entered after deportation, they are banned for life.
This is a really good point. Liberating migrations will change the behavior of migrants and hence the dynamics are completely different.
This is often talked about in the context of decriminalizing drugs. If you apply the current behavior to drug users to a world where access to drugs is less restricted, you can come up with all sorts of weird problems, which will simply not manifest because the nature of drug use is completely different when it is not a crime.
Similarly applying the current behavior of restricted migrants to a world where migration is free, is a little misguided.
Exactly. The non-EU migrants to the EU have to go through a lot of paperwork and it takes a lot of time. And if you then leave without naturalizing (which for most non-EU citizens is probably going to take over 10 years from the day of arrival, not to mention the daunting requirements to actually achieve it in most of the EU), you’ll likely have to through the same paperwork again, because “permanent residence” is only permanent if you remain a resident.
For example I’m a permanent resident in the UK (under the EU settlement scheme, post-Brexit), but I haven’t lived in the UK for 2 years now. So in 3 years my status there will lapse. I can go back now, but I won’t be able to in 3 years. And I have it easy. Permanent resident status (ILR, or indefinite leave to remain, as it’s called in the UK) lapses in 2 years for people who didn’t gain it under the EU settlement scheme.
I went back to my home country precisely because I knew that it’s no big deal for the next 5 years. I wouldn’t have left if I knew that I’d have to return within 2 years. I would have naturalised, and maybe then. Which, again, costs a lot of money, takes a lot of paperwork, and takes a lot of time. (Which, again, is easy for me, because my home country allows you to hold multiple citizenships. That’s not the case for everyone.)
> In my small EU country, this has created a caste of low-paying jobs that only immigrants do, and the hiring process usually goes along "put out an ad, offer minimum pay" - "noone local wants to do that job for minimum wage" - "complain you can't get workers" - "get work visas for foreigners"
Where? This doesn’t sound like the Irish experience at all. Another small EU country.
I live in slovenia, stuff like construcion, cleaning/housekeeping, garbage disposal, etc. is mostly done by (more) southern balkan people (bosnians, serbs, albanians, etc.).
Even if you go further north (austria, germany, switzerland,...), it's easier to talk to eg. construction workers if you know any of the ex-yugoslav languages, than using eg. german.
If you also pay immigrants well, they actually integrate well.
A huge barrier to integration is lack of social mobility. Europe hasn't really closed the class gap between Europeans and immigrants (either economic immigrants, or escaping a shit country immigrant)
But if you pay well, you also get the locals to do the job.
I know higly educated people in demand (scientists, engineers,...) are well paid anywhere, but "free immigration" would bring in a lot of people, bringing a lot of jobs down to minimum wage or even lower.
In my small EU country, this has created a caste of low-paying jobs that only immigrants do, and the hiring process usually goes along "put out an ad, offer minimum pay" - "noone local wants to do that job for minimum wage" - "complain you can't get workers" - "get work visas for foreigners".
This would/could be mitigated by raising the minimum wage for foreign workers (eg., you need a cleaning lady, the pay for a foreign worker must be atleast 1.5x the average pay currently working cleaning ladies get, so they'll try to get a local for atleast 1.499x the average pay first and then if really desparate hire a foreigner).