Cutting immigration will increase wages | The Jackal

14 Jul 2017

Cutting immigration will increase wages

It’s often amusing to see the whacky arguments the National led government and business owners come up with to try and say cuts to immigration are a really bad thing. But once in a while they really put their foot in their mouths.

That was the case when Infometrics chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan spoke on The AM Show last Friday, when he said cutting immigration would increase people’s wages.

Today, Newshub reported:

Dramatic immigration cuts would 'kneecap' economy

"When we're running at over 70,000 people coming into the country in net terms over the last year, yet even in that situation employers are crying out for skills, crying out for workers, if you're going to cut off that supply of labour that's potentially going to have repercussions for the economy," he said.

"Wage costs will be pushed up as businesses try to retain staff, that will flow through into higher prices for consumers.

How terrible! I guess paying people enough to retain them instead of relying on new immigrants who will work for less is a really bad thing for a money-grubbing business owner. Of course the argument that businesses can always just pass costs onto consumers is bogus as well.

Strangely Kiernan argues that even with such huge immigration, businesses are still unable to find suitable skilled employees. Clearly the solution isn’t more immigration then, its trades and training.

New Zealand really needs to look at getting some of those 90,000 NEETs (young person who is Not in Education, Employment, or Training) into employment through training incentives and apprenticeships. That’s really the only way New Zealand’s economy will start firing on all cylinders.

In light of this it would be a good idea to vote for a political party who actually value young New Zealanders and will help them to achieve their goals, instead of the National party who is happy to just waste all that young potential.