By Paul Petersen
Immigration has long been tied to economic expediency. In days gone by, plane loads of migrants have been diverted from their destinations to ensure that industrial centres were supplied with workers. Consequently the NSW premier's recent comments should come as no surprise. However, they are symptomatic of a revived debate about how to manipulate intakes and settlement patterns for maximum economic benefit.
One of the most important factors for settlement in a new country is access to support through family, friends or relatives. Bob Carr's proposal to divert migrants from Sydney could deprive them of access to this very valuable support.
The main way migration is manipulated at present is through the restriction of total migration during recessions and the expansion of places during booms. This process may well be exacerbating the boom-bust cycle of the economy. This is because immigration boosts demand for goods and services. Far from being a drain on the economy, migration is beneficial.
According to Professor Glen Whithers of the National Population Council and David Pope of the Australian National University, immigration reduced unemployment by 21,000 places per year over the decade to 1992.
While we shouldn't shy away from exploring the impact of population growth on the environment and economy, we do need to question why the focus is on immigrants.
Carr's comments ignore the impact of internal migration patterns and imply that migrants are more deserving of demographic manipulation than other people.
The NSW government is in no position to take the high moral ground on the environment/infrastructure problem. Its solution to polluted beaches was to push sewers further out to sea. It is this absence of public planning and investment in infrastructure, not migration, that is putting Sydney's urban environment under strain.
We need to counter the argument that migration is an economic and environmental burden. These arguments are more likely to create anti-migrant sentiments than actually decrease intakes.
Higher jobless rate
If anyone suffers an economic burden, it is more likely to be migrants themselves. People from non-English speaking backgrounds are over-represented in the ranks of the long term unemployed. However, they are not over-utilisers of unemployment benefits or social security. Data for the period 1990-94 shows the reverse is the case. Immigrants are less likely than their Australian-born counterparts to be recipients of Job Search or New Start allowance.
In each of the last three recessions, the unemployment rate of immigrants has risen more quickly than that of the Australian-born and has fallen more slowly in the recovery period. The unemployment rate for immigrants continued to rise for a year after the general unemployment rate declined in the last recession.
The federal goverment's decision to reduce expenditure on employment creation (by $1.1 billion over three years) will be of particular concern to unemployed people from non-English speaking backgrounds.
Despite these cuts, Working Nation expenditure will increase over the next two financial years but not by the amount originally planned. The government claims that such expenditure is no longer necessary since it has met its three year target of 500,000 new jobs in last two years.
However, these 500,000 jobs merely replace ones that disappeared during the recession. With each recession, unemployment has ratcheted up. The rate has not returned to pre-recession levels. It was for this reason that high levels of expenditure were originally deemed necessary.
According to the Department of Employment, Education and Training, the $1.1 billion savings come from three areas:
1) a higher rate of applications for the Mature Age Allowance (where people are no longer required to seek work)
2) a 147,000 reduction in labour market program places over three years; and
3) reduced "unit costs" in the delivery of labour market programs ($460 million).
Some of these reduced unit costs are legitimate, but many will reduce the quality of outcomes. There will be an increase in the use of shorter, cheaper courses and a greater use of tendering, and functions such as case management will be contracted out.
Migrant welfare organisations are being targeted by DEET to become contracted providers of case management and job creation schemes. It is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it could result in more culturally appropriate services. On the other, it could mean DEET abdicating responsibility for equitable outcomes of its programs. Traditionally these community sector organisations have been independent advocates for unemployed clients; if they deliver programs on behalf of the government, there is a potential conflict of interest.
Fiddling figures
Working Nation is geared to narrow quantitative outcomes. The primary aim is to eliminate the pool of long-term unemployed (LTU). By using a statistical fiddle, the government will be able to claim that it has more than halved LTU when it goes to the polls.
People who have been claiming unemployment benefits for 18 months are classified as LTU. They receive individual case management and may receive assistance to become "job ready". When job ready, the person is offered a "compact job". The job compact is the centrepiece of Working Nation. It's an offer you can't refuse — because if you do, you will lose your entitlement to unemployment benefits.
The bulk of these "compact" positions will be delivered through a program called New Work Opportunities (NWO). It is here that the statistical fiddle takes place.
NWO provides six months of "training and work experience placement". It is not a real job. There is no entitlement to award wages, superannuation or holiday leave. But for the purposes of the statistics, NWO placements are deemed to have worked and are no longer considered long-term unemployed.
Why would the state spend so much on reshuffling the unemployed? We know that unemployment can be used to undermine the industrial strength of the working class. However, there is no use in having a reserve army of unemployed if they don't have the skills to be substituted for existing workers. Unemployment may be functional to capitalism, but long-term unemployment is not. Although Working Nation will help to create employment, it seems to do more to ensure that the reserve army are "job ready".
So why should socialists care if Working Nation is cut? For starters, the immiseration of the long-term unemployed does not lead to spontaneous politicisation.
Secondly, a disproportionately large component of the long-term unemployed are from migrant backgrounds. Unemployment is creating huge social problems for many of these communities. This ethnic division of the working class weakens its consciousness and industrial strength.
Thirdly, we need to expose the fact that "free" markets can not, on their own, deliver socially desirable outcomes. Social intervention is possible and desirable.
Labour market programs are contestable terrain. We need to ensure that they serve the needs of the working class rather than capital.
[Paul Petersen works as a community development worker in the area of migrant employment.]