Polish migration to Uk

Polish migration to Uk

1. Positives

   • Source country
     • Workers don't plan on staying is destination country and come back with new skills that have been learned in the different country
     • Less strain on food and resources for families who can't afford to feed many people
     • Workers send money back to home country (remittances). estimates say about £4 billion is sent back to Poland
   • Destination country: UK
     • Polish work force has contributed several billion pounds to British economy
     • Clusters of Polish businesses have opened and have rejuvenated local high streets
     • Many of these workers do jobs that cannot be filled on the wages offered to local people. This is keeping wages low for employers.
     • Many migrants are young, single and have more disposable income, they are keen to join the customer culture. British businesses like Tesco sell over 100 different lines of polish food.
     • Filled gaps in the UK labour market. The migrants are hard workers and assets

2. Negatives

   • Destination country: UK
     • Social tentions between migrants and locals
       • Accuse migrants of coming to claim benefits, "benefits tourism"
     • Harder for small settlements to absorb the numbers of migrants, In Peterbough, there are 1 in 10 migrants for the population
     • Total numbers of migrants not fully known. In Wrexham 2,340 migrants are registered. But estimates say that there are as many as 8,000
     • Stress put on uniformed services like NHS. Specialist language nurses have been hired due to language barrier
   • Source country: Poland
     • Many workers still want to head for the Uk as the pay rate is about 2 times higher
     • Poland's divorce rate has doubled, this is due to the periods of time migrants spend away from home.
     • The rapid migration from poland to the UK is causing a shortage of workers in Poland. This lack of workers is now seen as a barrier to growth.

3. Case study: Boston Lincolnshire

   • 30% of workers are polish
   • 20,000 estimated migrants
   • Positives
     • Lincolnshire would go bankrupt without polish workers
     • Money they earn is put into local economy
     • Diverse culture
     • Increased birthrate due to young people
     • 500 workers now in NHS service
   • Negatives
     • Increased use of NHS service due to birth rate increasing
     • Social tension, 21% of local population have bad attitude to migrants