Poles, Slovaks and statistics

"UK lets in more Poles than there are in Warsaw" ran the headline in The Daily Mail. The Government, meanwhile, predicted the UK would receive just 13,000 immigrants per year from the eight former Communist countries that acceded to the EU in 2004.

Instead, we learn, the number is somewhere in between: with around 427,000 Eastern Europeans joining Britain's Worker Registration Scheme since the EU expanded and considered a new logo (above).

And that was not all we found out. Even though today's statistics are incomplete — self-employed immigrants need not register with the scheme, explaining its silly total of just 190 Eastern European plumbers — they contained plenty of eye-catching bits and pieces.

After the 265,000 Poles who applied to the scheme, for instance, came the Lithuanians, the second largest group, with 50,535 applicants. Trying to improve our knowledge of Lithuania (capital Vilnius, mainly Catholic), we enjoyed this guide to Lithuanian rock, with its due mention of the country's greatest band, Foge. This year, Foge's singer, Andrius Mamontovas, masterminded the country's sixth place finish at the Eurovision song contest. Anyway.

Immigrants from the "Accession 8", as they are known in Home Office-speak, are young. Eighty-two per cent of those who registered with the scheme are under 34, with 43 per cent aged just 24 or under.

Their jobs vary according to where they live and they don't earn much: 78 per cent of applicants earn between £4.50 and £5.99 an hour, which works out at around £200 a week. The average full-time weekly wage in the UK last year was £431.

In East Anglia, which has supplanted London as the likeliest home of a recent Eastern European immigrant, the most popular job was in "Administration, Business and Management", whereas in London, immigrants are more likely to be waiters and cooks. In Scotland, Eastern Europeans are four times more likely to be farm labourers than builders.

Overall, 37 per cent of recent arrivals work as factory hands, 10 per cent in warehouses and 9 per cent as "packers". The most detailed list offered by the Home Office showed five "Accession 8" actors, 10 writers, 1,695 bakers and 15 circus performers.

Among the statistics most eagerly stressed by the Government are those that show the low demand among applicants for income support and local authority housing. In the two years of the scheme, just under 6,000 workers (including nine Slovenians) applied for income-related benefits, of those, just 768 saw their applications proceed. Only 110 recent arrivals rent local authority housing.

So with those myths laid to rest, time to get working on the notion that Poland is governed by a pair of identical twins who are distinguishable by a single mole and were once child movie stars. Oh.

Comments

[Keith Downer]

I'm willing to wager that as the Titanic sank slowly beneath the waves during that cold, dark night, one or other of the crew turned to the fellow beside him in an escaping lifeboat and commented, "I wish we had kept a better look-out". With the expansion of the EU and the removal of our borders here in the UK, we entered a ice-field. The Polish iceberg struck us with more than a glancing blow; the damage is still being assessed. We are now all standing, pressed hard against the rails, looking out at the horizon as a collection of even bigger bergs gathers in our path. We know they are there; we know the threat they pose; SS United Kingdom is still able to steer an avoidance course but those responsible up on the bridge have either gone to sleep, imbibed too much port and wine or are too stupid to listen to the warnings! Anyone for the lifeboats?

[Anon]

I employ a Polish cleaner on a part time basis. I pay her more than the average wage. Yet, if I asked an unemployed British person to do the same for the same wage (£7 per hour) they would laugh in my face as they went to cash their Giro cheque!

Instead of worrying about the so called threat of the Eastern Human tsunami, shouldn't we be more concerned about the presence of radical Islam on the streets of Britain?

Of course the influx of people from Eastern Europe has had a detrimental effect, those British people that were lazy before the expansion of the EU have become lazier, why should they do a cleaning/manual job when an Eastern European will do it. That will allow them to sit on their fat, fast food behind watching daytime TV, waiting for Giro day!

[george]

Mr. Blair, thank you so much for all these low paid Polish plumbers and cheap Lithuanian prostitutes and next year, even more thanks for the coming Bulgarian criminals and Romanian beggars !

[Phil Simpson]

All this nonsense about Eastern Europeans "flooding in" and when the figures are analysed over 60% are coming direct from Poland. Romania and Bulgaria are totally different propositions to Poland (which is a North European country with an affinity to the UK built up over the last fifty years). Romanians are a Latin nation who would not naturally flock to the UK, the levels of Romanian immigration to the UK will be more comparable to Hungary (12,000) rather than Poland. Furthermore, when will the counter-argument for Eastern European immigration be made ? The UK has benefited enormously from the influx of shop floor workers, dentists, builders and nurses. People DESPERATE to work and make a success of their time in the UK. Such industrious, determined people should be welcomed to the UK not driven out by small-minded, short termist,little Englanders.

[john gregory Flinn]

Too true Keith Downer and Anon, and it will get worse (just like radical Islam). I mean it can't get better because they won't go home in a hurry, repatriation is not on and all their dependents have yet to arrive. Wait till they start claiming benefits.
Don't imagine that Cameron will do much; he might tinker with the statistics and appear to slow things down, but there is just so much complacency (spinned as tolerance) and so many people ready to shout racism, discrimination, abuse of human-rights, or simply lie etc., that it won't come to much.
I do not want to seem a smart-alec but I did see it coming and left the UK with my family in 2004.

[Nigel W]

These poles seem generally hard working and pleasant people.

However, given that unemployment has been rising sharply while all these people have been coming into the country, it seems obvious that the numbers are too large. In addition, there was already a chronic shortage of housing for the young, which this has made much worse.

It also seems fairly obvious that while some people will have gained from the influx, such as those getting cheaper plumbing services, many will have lost. A huge influx of workers into certain types of jobs inevitably means that wages are lower than they would have been. Great if you're a lawyer or politician and a house owner in London; dreadful if you're a young person who's not yet a home owner and has to compete with all these people for jobs!

[snowflake5]

John Gregory Flinn - I see you have chosen to become a migrant too, which is ironic as you are complaining about migrants coming to Britain. I hope your host country is a bit nicer to you than you are prepared to be to migrants coming here.

[M Grudzien]

I am a Pole myself and I do not like the way we are being portrayed in the british press. We a a nation of hard-working and polite people. We do not binge drink,do not cause any trouble, are well educated and pleasant and settle in quickly, yet there is lots of hatery towards us in here.
It is true, that since the EU expansion lots of Poles arrived in Britain, but this influx will soon slow down and at some point most of these people will get back home.
As someone said it before: you should be more afraid of the presence of radical Islam on the streets of Britain.

[Tim Holdsworth]

I work in a local factory producing domestic white goods. We have many Polish workers who are more than willing to do the jobs that the local youths cannot be bothered to apply for. I have always found them to be hard working, flexible, and polite. Their arrival has improved the standard of 'Production Operator' at our factory.

[Paul Rideout]

I work in tiling and I am now losing work to the polish who are working for 60 to 70% less than I can do the same job for.
The Poles arrive here with no mortgage and no dependants whereas I have to sustain a family and a lifestyle.
I have lost 75% of my work to the Poles and dont know what the future holds for myself and my family.
The eastern european influx to this country have been the worst thing that has ever happened to me and workers like me.
Im sorry, but they will never be welcomed by me or my family and I for one would like to see them gone.

[john gregory Flinn]

For Snowflake; not bad but not quite.
You should reread my post because the argument is about control of immigration, (or lack of it in Britain's case) not migration.
Migration is a fact of life - like death and taxes.
We were emigrants to a country that controls immigration.
Do you see the difference? I realize people on the left try hard to polarize these issues, thereby stigmatising one side of the argument, but it really does'nt wash anymore.
And, incidentally, my wife was an immigrant to Britain originally....

[John Charlesworth]

In order to be able to accommodate new entrants it is vital that
Government and more importantly local Government are able to plan: housing, schools, hospitals and much more.

I find it hard to believe that the massive numbers, up to 50 times what was expected, were not known about.

However, having said that, we as a country need the extra hardworking
Manpower. Also we have to face the fact that we have many problems of our own with the manifestation of violent crime, litter, ASB in general et al. Many from Poland and elsewhere will not
lower the tone - maybe the reverse in fact!

[Diabloblanco]

You Brits have lost your mind. Your country will have a Non-White majority by 2100, the first time in history that any nation voluntarily allowed an alien population to displace the native population, London will have a Non-White majority (IN THE HEART OF EUROPE! )in a year or ewo and you are all up in arms about beautiful pure White tough hardworking Poles coming to your nations rescue
I guess you would prefer Pakistani and Black gromming gangs pimping out your daughters,and "no go zones" as long as they could speak English
You are a nation of weeklings obcessed with colored footballers and drunken pubbing with other men while Pakis take your commerce and Blacks take your women
You are right ...Poles dont belong in the UK...YOU DONT DESERVE THEM!
Poles come to America instead.....We love and appreciate you!

[Stuart Ingrey]

The Police, the NHS and the Schools are flagging to the government that help is required for the influx of new migrants in to the UK. If you cannot reconcile that the pro's outweigh the con's then at least consider the UK citizens opinion. I am not voting Labour in future that's for sure!!!