Saturday, February 16, 2008
More “sound fundamental” wheels coming off
Tide turns as Poles end great migration
The Times has established that, for the first time since they began arriving en masse four years ago, more UK-based Poles are returning to their homeland than are entering Britain.
Posted by leavingthecountry @ 08:18 AM (1785 views)
23 thoughts on “More “sound fundamental” wheels coming off”
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happyrenterz says:
BTL’ers take note “Half of the estimated one million British-based Poles are expected to return home, said the Centre for International Relations, a Warsaw-based think-tank.”
japanese uncle says:
When you’ve got money,
You’ve got lots of friends
Crowding round the door
When you’re gone, and all the spending ends
They don’t come any more
———————————-
God Bless the Child (Billie Holiday)
stillthinking says:
“30 million British-based Britains attempted to return home to bring up their children but got a nasty shock when told at customs they were already there.”
Letthemfall says:
One less excuse for the house price pumpers.
Unfortunately, a chink of light for the cowboys too.
Matt_the_hat says:
Don’t leave we need you to look after our old people and the people who don’t want to work. Sick man of europe!!
Notworried says:
seems to me that most immigrants in England usually do not settle in the country:
they come, work, take all the crap the press throw at them and then they leave.
The small % that stays are the idiots in their cohorts.
sold out says:
I got to meet a polish bloke working in Ireland just before xmas.He told me he was off home for the holiday and did not intend going back to Ireland or the Uk.When i asked why he said that the economy in his homeland was beginning to pick up and their was plenty of work,with lower wages however the differance between what he can earn here and back home was also a lot smaller than when he came over 2 years ago.What will the differance be in a years time when brown and darlings mismanagement devalues our currency further?Another nail in the BTL coffin.
hpwatcher says:
Polish migrants were never really that important to the BTL sector….as these guys tend to live about 30 people to a single 3 bedroom house.
They came when the money was good, and probably never intended to stay. Apparently there is a real shortage of builders in Poland and so the wages have risen accordingly.
mark wadsworth says:
Tee hee, brilliant. God bless Poland.
Colllywolly says:
Well thats our economy really fooked now, as the Poles seem to be the only ones doing much in the way of real work over here.
Hunthunthunt says:
My prediction is that this will become an increasing trend, when I moved to London from Australia 4 years ago my earnings were double in the UK compared to Australia. Now however, this is not the case. Given the devaluing of the pound and the booming Australian economy, wages are pretty much equal. Quality of life in the UK is substandard and expensive compared to Australia. Expect to see a lot of South Africans, Canadians, Australians etc returning home to better quality’s of life and more stable economies.
Spiderchannel says:
soldout has put his finger on it… the Poles have taken advantage of the big difference in wages in Britain and Ireland and wages in Poland which they know is only going to last a short time. The main idea is to work and save as much dosh as possible and return to Poland and buy a house there, not here where they will get a lot more house for their money! Apart from some who will be staying in the medium term, they are not as stupid as to throw money at very bad value housing in Britain.
Stevie Dee says:
Poles to be replaced with any undesirable.. Now the government plans on terrorism legislation is finally making sense. How could I have been so thoughtless.
drewster says:
hpwatcher,
I’m not sure I believe this myth about Poles all living twenty to a room. Although some extreme cases have made headlines (Peterborough Evening Times: Thirteen people found living in a tiny house), most of the Poles I’ve spoken to (cleaners, builders, etc.) live one or two to a room. So if half a million Poles return home, that’s the equivalent of quarter of a million Brits leaving, at least in terms of the effect on housing demand.
Note that the article doesn’t mention other groups of immigrants. Poland makes up the largest single group of immigrants but many other countries have a significant presence too. In particular there seem to be a lot of Brazilians – just this week one was found illegally working as a cleaner in the House of Commons. As Brazil’s economy improves, they might start returning home too. A few weeks ago I posted an article about the Brazilians in America returning home, and many of you commented about parallels with the Poles in the UK: International Herald Tribune: Brazilians giving up their American dream.
Jayk says:
Yes, but who will fill the void?
Most British people do not want to do hard, dirty work for a living – and most of our young want to be rich or famous, not weld pipes or wire houses, let alone “work on the dust”. Neither will they turn up at building sites and work for £30-40 a day, cash in hand. When all those plumbers and builders and cheap labourers and factory workers go home another set of migrants will take their place. And this time they may not come from a country with as nice, polite and respectful a people (on the whole) as Poland. (I mean to say that other countries – including European – have a major problem with organised crime gangs which Poland does not.)
Be careful what you pray for.
it_is_going_with_a_bang says:
Why stay if there is work at home and property you can buy to call a home.
The bottom line is they want the same things out of life that we do.
I know some Poles who when they first moved to the UK went to London and lived 6 in a 2 bed flat. But it was always their intention to ‘better’ themselves.
After a year they rented their own flats – but only with the long term intention of settling down and having their own place. With that ‘out’ of reach they are considering moving back home.
They are hard workers true – BUT they have no intention of becoming slaves to our society.
Their earning just cover their rents and food and they are not happy about living like that forever.
They are a plane ticket away from home. The bottom line is they can go home for as long as they like and then move back here if things improve for them here.
No doubt Gordon Brown will be rushing to tear down any immigration rules to keep the fire burning.
happyrenterz says:
Also some immigrants have bought houses intending to settle here. As the article points out many are home-sick and economic change in fortune is just the nudge needed to sell up and go back home. Their home economies are no where near as heavily in debt both personally and nationally as we are, so will probably fare better than us for the next few years of constricted global liquidity.
Plato says:
Yes, not surprising at all. The reality being a far from a pleasant experience. Probably an underwhelming experience for many which they would rather forget — Like it is now for most Britons.
inbreda says:
“No doubt Gordon Brown will be rushing to tear down any immigration rules to keep the fire burning”
It is my guess that when the economy goes truly sour (for reasons that every visitor to this site is well versed in), the general (stupid) public will look for someone to blame. Historically this tends to be the environment for a surge in BNP and far right opinions. Brown could, and arguably should, tear down the immigration rules to keep the fire burning, but paradoxically the opposite is likely to happen when racism rears its ugly head and the blame is pinned on the “foreigners taking our jobs”, which will of course make the situation worse.
wiltshire says:
I think the ‘British Dream’ must be going pretty sour for a lot of economic migrants. Not only are they often exploited in the workplace and by greedy landlords, there’s the outlandish cost of housing in the UK, the ridiculous cost of living, the despair of living in many of our urban centres, the rampant street crime, constant infringement on our human rights by this power-crazed government etc etc. I’m surprised any economic migrants are going to bother staying. And then we’re also full-steam ahead for the economic iceberg.
new user 2007 says:
I think many Poles do indeed live more to a house than we do (most are here to save money to send home, not for the joy of a comfortable life). However, the sheer volume of people that have arrived from Eastern Europe in the last 7 years has added to the popn and given the VIs marketing to BTL what they need.
Now that popn growth will at worst decelerate and at best fall, it will become increasingly transparent that the the alleged shortage was built on wildly optimistic assumptionss. This coincides with the weak pound, dodgy economy and changes in iimigration in the rest of the EU )they can go there now).
If this source of labour starts disappearing wage growth will go up and complicate the BoE’s ability to cut rates too:)
planning4acrash says:
The main thing is, that we will not have to pay these guys unemployment benefit, just as Poland didn’t when their economy was waiting to rise. We could all benefit directly if we got off our backs and learned a new language!
planning4acrash says:
Maybe government shld give jobseekers t option of foreign language tuition? Ship em off2earn euro’s in’t costa’s whilst sterling’s weak. they’l not claim benefits, n’l come back when needed. Wld make up 4yrs of poor language education+we r euro afterall.