The obsession with immigration: Part II

So in part one I covered the basic issues. Why are the questions asked about immigration never the ones that actually count. In this section I move to my next point: skills.

The other arguement that people often discuss when considering immigration is the lack of skills in our country. 'Oh, how will business survive if we can't draw from those skilled, young, hardworking migrants?'. Somehow business is unable to survive without relying on importing people to do the work. Do I agree with this argument? Well actually once again I think to bother answering the question misses the real issue in the first place: we are a developed western nation, we have a mature education system (one of the best higher education systems in the whole world) and we spend a huge amount of money on educating our children, universally, I might add. Yet we're dependent on developing countries that have far more stretched resources and non-universal education systems in order to get enough skilled workers... how does that make sense?

If business cannot find the skilled workers it needs in this country surely the obvious question that needs answering is: why? Our country pours money into the education system, everyone has the opportunity to learn, almost everyone can read and write, why can't our people do the work?

If it is an issue with the type of education we receive (people studying [insert pointless qualification here] instead of training to become a plumber or software engineer) then don't we need to inform students about the jobs available and the demands that exist in order to ensure they have the best chance of getting employed in a job they will enjoy?

In the alternative if it is because our own citizens don't work as hard as immigrants, perhaps we need to ask questions about why they work so hard and we don't. I don't know what the answer will be, but if we don't look into it, you're not going to get the answer.

Finally there is another ethical issue at hand. Is it really fair for developing nations to spend their money on educating doctors and engineers and whatever else, just for a much richer nation to come along once they have finished their training and poach them? Training is expensive, and the host country no doubt needs doctors and engineers for its own companies and hospitals, is it fair to promote a immigration policy that allows poorer nations to pay for our doctors' training, when their own country's health standard is much lower than ours? Don't get me wrong, it is certainly cheaper for us, but I'm not sure whether that is justification.

Either way whenever I heard a discussion regarding immigration I wonder where the question of family and education comes in. Sadly, I find it usually (if not always) just doesn't come up at all... perhaps if we start asking the right questions we can start to get the right answers and we can finally let the issue of immigration take a back seat to other matters.