[Moved from thread 'Why do buses terminate early' -admin]
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Roz, do you envision a future where we'll someday turn off the tap and halt economic immigration while forcing all those who have immigrated to return home? If so then, yes, we could be left with a skills gap, but otherwise I don't sunderstand what the problem is.

No- I'm talking about transient /temporary economic migration not long term immigration ; it is I believe the stated intention of most Poles and Eastern Europeans to return home rather than make the UK their permanent base once they have made lots of dosh. Theres an opportunity at the moment for them because we do not have the skilled workforce ie plumbers, carpenters, builders, even doctors.They will therefore take home their wonderful skills and the UK will be left with another gap to fill. The way Poland is going at the moment with so much inward investment and optimism it surely won't be long before working back home will be financially more attractive than working here. Also the teaching and town planning professions are currently being propped up by Kiwis and Aussies here on temporary arrangements. This is fine but they won't always be here.The point I am making is that we need to be careful about training and investment of young people and the emerging workforce.

For want of a better analogy its a bit like over relying on imported goods to guarantee basic services, ( such as gas supplies from Russia- another story!) -which is a fairly alarming prospect.

If all the Polish plumbers did go home tomorrow, what would happen? Plumbers' wages temporarily would rise until either plumbers started immigrating from somewhere else, or it became worthwhile for Brits to retrain as plumbers. What's the problem with that?

I see your point about the need to energy supplies in case of war, but plumbers are not quite as essential as that. In fact I think increased travel and working abroad, economic interdependence and investment by individuals, busineses and governements in neighbouring countries is one of the big hopes that we have for averting war in future. The more dependent we are on our neighbours, the better.

Roz has a point
I think most of these new europeans are great and very hardworking but there can be no doubt the ammount of Britons not bothering to work has increased dramatically. The official unemployment figures are a complete joke. There are up to 7 million Britons of working age not economically active.

What happens when Polish wages increase and many go home.

Just out of interest, where did you get that figure from?

Does the 7 million include students?

A quick Google search comes up with a few references to these sorts of stats:
Telegraph - Immigrants keep Britons in idleness
Optimum Polpulation Trust Report (see section 3.4)

Most of those economically innactive Brits are men in their 50s who worked in heavy industry pre-'80s in the North and Wales and are now innappropriately on Incapacity Benefit. Unfortunately it's not as simple as forcing them into a job selling coffee in Starbucks in Soho or, indeed, retraining in industries that have sprung up to services relatively well-off people living in South East England.

I believe economically innactive includes students. It's anyone 'not in work or not available to work'. It also includes anyone who's not working and looking after children! The seven million is rather alarmist, since there will always be people who don't work for very good reasons such as the above. It's incapacity benefit where there's a problem.