One of the myths of the modern world is that immigration is a net positive for the economy. More people equals more workers, more workers equals more productivity, more ingenuity, and more wealth for everyone. At least so the argument goes. This myth is compelling for a host of reasons. For instance, when British settlers came from the United Kingdom to Australia in the 18th century they did increase the wealth and prosperity of the land called Australia markedly. But people forget that this completely replaced the indigenous society that existed prior to settlement and pushed it to the fringes of society, many who still live in poverty today. Settlement replaced what was here before. However, people look at situations like that and then proclaim, “we are nation of immigrants” and argue that therefore there is no rational reason to oppose immigration.
However,
comparing settlers from one of the most advanced nations on earth coming to a
largely undeveloped country to modern foreigners who come here to drive Ubers
and pick crops is at best underhanded and at worst down right deceptive. Data
bears this out.
As Remix News
notes,
“New
data shows that foreigners account for a substantial share of people living in
absolute poverty in Italy, even as the poverty rates of families with two
Italian parents drops. One director of La Verita newspaper, Maurizio Belpietro,
has run an opinion piece in his newspaper lamenting that Italy is “importing
poverty.”
“We
are importing poor people. Of the total immigrant population, 35.6 percent live
in absolute poverty. This rate is five times higher than that of Italians,”
writes Belpietro, who is an influential voice in Italian politics with 360,000
followers on X.
He
further notes that although foreigners make up a small percentage of the
population, they represent a huge share of the number of people living in
poverty.
“Of
the 2.2 million households living in poverty, i.e., do not have enough income
to support a minimum standard of living, 1.5 million are Italian and 733,000
are foreigners. This means that, despite being less than a tenth of the
population, poor non-EU citizens are one third of the total,” he wrote.”[1]
Because of
the increased poverty rate, the idea that importing immigrants helps pay for
pensions and welfare for the citizens of Italy, something we often hear claimed
here as well, are shown to be false,
“Citing
the article, Italian commentator Francesca Totolo wrote on X: “No, immigrants
do not pay pensions to Italians. The absolute poverty rate among families of
only foreigners is 35.2%, while among families of only Italians it is 6.2%.
This means that it is and will be Italians who have to pay for assistance,
subsidies, housing, and pensions to foreigners without resources.”
This is not
just true in Italy, but is a phenomenon seen through the world in developed
countries that are importing people from very poor countries,
“According
to a landmark study from the Netherlands, the report found that migrants had
cost the state €400 billion between 1995 and 2019.
In
Germany, the estimated cost of migrants is currently at €50 billion a year,
including social benefits, housing, integration, education, and child
allowances.
In
2021, French author and academic Jean-Paul Gourévitch said in an interview with
Radio Sud that employment data show that it is a myth that immigration to
France has economic benefits.
“I
have studied this topic extensively and today everyone in France, from the left
to the right agrees that immigration costs more than it brings in,” Gourévitch
said. “There is a major difference between left and right (oriented) economists
regarding the costs: the leftist economists say the deficit is six to ten
billion [euros per year], while those on the right say it is 40 to 44 billion.
My own scientific research shows that the deficit is 20 to 25 billion [euros],”
he said.”[2]
Remix also
notes something that is often overlooked by those who discuss this issue. China
is developing economically at an incredible rate, surpassing all western
nations in its rate of growth, and yet it strictly enforces immigration policies that allow much less immigration.
This shows what a nation that is not importing poverty and welfare cases can
do.
This really
intuitive, is it not? Just because you have relocated someone from a poor
country to a rich country does not mean you will drastically improve their
economic standing, and it certainly cannot improve your nations economic
standing, either. This is especially true when you factor in language barriers,
training differences, the cultural shock of moving to another country and
readjusting. This is born out in the data as well, because many Australian
immigrants are working in jobs they are vastly over qualified for,
“Half
of skilled migrants are working in occupations they are overqualified for,
suggesting that Australia is failing to capitalise on the influx of foreign
workers and best match their skills to the most productive jobs.
Migration
and labour market experts argue rigid occupational licensing rules and
discrimination against foreigners with sub-par English language are making it
too difficult for migrants to fully exploit their skills…
…Committee for Economic Development of Australia senior economist Andrew Barker said a failure to formally recognise migrants’ skills and foreign qualifications, English-language ability challenges and, in some cases, discrimination, are key reasons Australia is not making the most of skilled migrants.
As
a result, migrants who have been in Australia for two to six years earn more
than 10 per cent less than otherwise similar Australian-born workers, and it
takes 15 years to catch up, CEDA research shows.”[3]
They always
blame “discrimination” rather than take responsibility for their bad policies.
Language barriers are not perceived, but real. It is very difficult to work alongside
someone you cannot understand in a skilled profession. We have all had that
experience with a doctor where we knew they could not understand us and vice
versa. Also, it takes 15 years for them to catch up, but an increasing number a constantly brought in. Hence this hampers economic growth and efficiency.
Macrobusiness
has reported this same issue,
“The
AFR’s Ronald Mizen has published an article describing Australia’s broken
‘skilled’ visa system, which is importing many purportedly skilled workers who
end up working in menial jobs such as driving Uber.
“More
than 620,000 permanent migrants work below their skill levels and
qualifications, according to Deloitte Access Economics”, writes Mizen.
“And
of these, about 60 per cent, or 372,000, arrived in the skilled migration
system”.
It
is a story that is as old as the hills.
“Only
50% of qualified engineers born overseas currently working in Australia are
working as engineers – a reality that is impacting the nation’s ability to
address the national infrastructure deficit and generate economic growth”,
Engineers Australia chief executive Romilly Madew told Hare.
“An
army of well over 100,000 qualified, skilled engineers are currently in
Australia, driving Ubers or doing some other kind of work that is not related
to engineering. This is an emerging national disaster”, she said.
The
malfeasance of Australia’s ‘skilled’ migration system cannot be overstated. We
are depriving poor nations of their talent while exacerbating skills and
housing shortages at home. It is a lose-lose situation.”[4]
Those who
come here for welfare reasons are even more likely to be struggling and in need
of welfare support,
“Thousands
of asylum seekers in Australia are suffering from homelessness, poverty, and
poor mental health, a new report by the Human Rights Commission revealed.
The
report, entitled Lives on Hold, is the first comprehensive look into the
experience of 30,000 people who are unable to be permanently settled in
Australia because they arrived by boat between 2009 and 2013.”[5]
But this is
not just true of boat arrivals. For instance, this medical study notes,
“Women
and immigrants from North Africa, Middle East, and Sub-Sahara Africa need
additional support to reduce the risk of poor health. Refugees are more likely
to have financial hardship and these hardships increase the likelihood of poor
health. To help this vulnerable group to integrate into the host country it is
important to provide long term economic support to reduce the risk of both
financial hardship and poor health. Our findings can be used to help develop
long term strategies to promote the health and economic well-being of a
vulnerable population of HM, contributing to international SDGs of reducing
health inequalities (SDG 10) and improving the health and well-being of all
people (SDG 3).[6]
Large scale immigration is bringing down Australia’s wealth and prosperity, whether it is skilled
immigration or refugees. And the data shows that certain types of refugees are
far more likely to be in need of welfare and support than the average
Australian.
The ABS even
shows that migrants are more likely to be unemployed than Australians,
“While
the overall unemployment rate was higher for recent migrants and temporary
residents than for people born in Australia (5.9% vs 4.7%), it varied across
the different migrant groups:
3.3%
for migrants with Australian citizenship
4.8%
for temporary residents
9.2%
for migrants on a permanent visa (Table 2 and Graph 1)
Female
recent migrants and temporary residents had a higher unemployment rate than
males (8.3% vs 3.9%). (Table 3)”[7]
Though, we should note that some groups of migrants have a higher employment rate, they are not the average. This higher rate of employment is likely because some high skilled migrants come here with a job already lined up.[8] Which is not necessarily contributing to the wealth of Australians who were already in the country and did not get that same job. Also this pushes up the prices of rent and housing, severely harming the budgets of Australian families.
Graph from ABS website.[9]
What is
especially interesting is that one of the highest qualifications among migrants
was engineers[10],
yet we know that about 50% of them are driving Ubers, or doing other unskilled
work.
So, while we
could probably say that Australia’s immigration system is better than Italy’s, we are still seeing some of the same issues here that are witnessed there. On
average immigrants are more likely to be unemployed, more likely to be working
a job for which they are over-qualified, and therefore, this is not lifting up
the strength of Australia’s economy. And in some instances we see that we are
importing from some countries genuine charity cases which will cost this nation
great amounts of money in welfare. Our advantage over Italy is probably less
about our immigration strategy and more about the fact that it is much harder
to get here from the 3rd world than it is to get there. This, by
itself, is probably saving us from the same level of imported poverty as Italy,
but we still have done a fair bit of this ourselves anyway.
Anecdotally,
I have done a lot of work among the homeless, and a large number of those whom
I have ministered amongst are from overseas. Many come from New Zealand, or
from the Pacific. In fact, this general region is massively represented in the
homeless communities I have ministered amongst. This problem is so well recognized, that one charity is offering New Zealanders who are homeless one
way tickets home,
New
Zealand citizens who find themselves homeless in Australia are being offered
one-way tickets home amid the nation's worsening housing crisis.
A
small community centre on the Gold Coast said it had helped hundreds of Kiwis
with the last-resort flights over the past 15 years.
Repatriation
was often "the best and only option", according to Nerang
Neighbourhood Centre general manager Vicky Rose.”[11]
While the ABC
article notes this is a small number of people who end up in this situation,
this shows my observation comports with a larger trend in Australia. Our immigration
system is importing poverty, and even when it is not doing this with skilled immigration, it is not
running as efficiently as the home grown labour market. We all probably know
immigrants who are highly skilled but cannot get a job in their field. How much
more of this do we want to do during a housing crisis where Aussie kids can’t
get their own rental or first home because of an increasingly growing
population?
Australia’s
immigration policy needs to change, and it needs to change quick.
[1]
Remix News Staff, 2025, https://rmx.news/article/we-import-poverty-italian-newspaper-argues-that-foreigners-are-impoverishing-italy-after-new-data-published/
[2] Ibid.
[3]
John Kehoe, 2024, https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/migrants-are-driving-ubers-not-working-skilled-jobs-20240523-p5jg1c
[4] Leith
Van Olsen https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2024/12/australia-imports-engineers-to-drive-uber/
[5] Madeleine
Keck, 2019, https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/asylum-seekers-in-australia-at-risk-of-poverty/
[6] Joanna
Torliska et. Al, 2020, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8352014/
[8]
Ibid.
[9]
Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
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