Open%20borders%20The%20case%20against%20immigration%20controls%20-%20Teresa%20Hayter

156 Open Borders
who are very poor usually cannot migrate to other countries and continents.
Those who migrate tend to do so from slightly better-off areas and sectors of
the population. Mostly they migrate because they want to work, save and
probably remit their savings to their families in their countries of origin. The
same was true in the past, before immigration controls, and will be so when
controls have been abandoned.
Economic migration, to the extent that it exists, occurs in response to
labour demand in richer countries. Saskia Sassen in The Mobility of Labour
and Capital argues that there is currently a large increase in low-paid, often
service-sector jobs, especially in the big cities of the United States and other
industrialised countries, in declining industries, in new ‘high tech’ industries,
and to service these industries and the expanding professional elite. This, she
says, combined with increased so-called ‘globalisation’ and links created by
the activities of multinational companies, is what is causing migration. Over
the years capitalism has frequently been confronted by the problem of labour
shortages, and has resorted to force to secure labour. More recently European
countries, as well as the countries better known as countries of immigration
including the United States, have satisfied their unmet labour needs through
immigration. When their economies were expanding they obtained labour
first from the poorer parts of Europe and then from the Third World. Now
that European countries are in a period of low growth, and unemployment
is high, immigration would have declined anyway. But these countries still
need foreign labour to do jobs which the natives have ceased to be willing to
do; it would have catastrophic effects on their economies if recent immigrants
were to leave in any numbers. It is common for there to be vacancies in
unskilled and casual employment in hotels, restaurants, supermarkets and
hospitals even in places where unemployment is high.
In addition, it seems likely that the need for immigrant workers, of all
types, will increase in the future because of static and even declining
populations in Europe, and the ageing of these populations. Although an
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report
published in 1991 rejected the possibility of remedying the problem by
allowing immigration, on the grounds it was ‘politically unthinkable in the
Europe of today’, it is possible that official opinion will change. The United
Nations Population Division published a report in March 2000 entitled
Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations? The
report said that the populations of Europe and Japan were expected to decline
as a result of declining birth rates in the next 50 years. The population of
Italy, for example, is projected to decline from 57 million now to 41 million
in 2050. The declines in working-age populations and in the ratio of people
of working age to people over 65 will be even greater. For Europe, whereas
there are now five people of working age for each person over 65, by 2050
the projected ratio is only two to one. The UN report says that to maintain
their working-age populations at their 1995 levels Italy would need about
350,000 migrants per year and Germany would need about 500,000. To