Philobiblon

Excellent piece in The Times this morning about the fact that 600,000, give or take the odd hundred thousand, citizens of new EU states, have come to Britain and almost all found jobs, while having almost no effect on British unemployment. I think of it from the situation of about seven or eight years ago, when the fuss was about the influx of people from the Balkans. The Bosnian car-washer, slaving all hours of the day and night for little pay and going back to the room he shares with two others is not taking away the job of the ex-coal miner from the north with his family home and children. They simply exist in different economies. Ditto the young female Polish care-worker.

The interesting question is how many of the Poles and others are going to stay. Most of the anecdotal evidence suggests that they think they are only here for a few years, but of course they might be wrong. And since the UK government crazily keeps no track of people leaving the country, it will be a long time before that is clear.

This is why, for those not following the story, the figure is so vague. First of all the initial statistic relies on data collected only from those seeking a job – the self-employed (all those Polish plumbers) are not counted at all. Secondly, no one knows how many of the initial registrees have got homesick, not found a job, or otherwise have decided to go home.