More Immigration…. NOT a good solution
Many citizens in most of the western world now see immigration as much more of a threat than a promise, and it’s now a main issue in the western political discourse.
Uncontrolled Immigration ……. A Bad Idea!
Adding population in an uncontrolled manner, such as recently experienced in many western nations, does little to generate real growth, but is a sure way to destroy productivity, as well as over burden job availability, and stress all the support services such as housing, schools, health care systems etc.
Also, it’s now very clear that adding large uncontrolled quantities of economically nonviable newcomers from increasingly diverse cultures breeds social unrest, and eradicates any residual tolerance to multiculturalism, and makes assimilation into the national culture near impossible.
lax immigration rules, and the United Nations dubious approach to human rights, has sent the impression to the rest of the world that migration across a national border is a God-given-right. Well, we need to clearly signal that it’s NOT. We must enforce and communicate that we have new stringent immigration systems that benefit our citizens, and less so the immigrants and certainly unlawful migrants.
Back to Previous Immigration Systems.
Many of us who were immigrants in the late seventies provided an immediate economic benefit to our new nation. We came with well-respected and understood credentials and relevant experience. We also had to have a full-time job offer that was screened to determine that it could not be filled by the existing citizen base. In this way we qualified for landed immigrant status. But today it appears many western nations have devalued immigration by lowering the acceptance criteria so that it fails to have any value to the long-term mission of the national economies.
So, it’s time to re-install this previous process. Such candidates must also be screened for social compatibility, pass physical medicals, and undertake and pass a rigorous language test before granted landed status.
Further restrictions needed.
As well as returning to this previous system we must enforce and administer stiff penalties to those that attempt unlawful entry. If anyone is arrested in an unlawful entry situation, then deportation must be immediate. Thery must undergo criminal processing including with finger printing, and be returned to the country of origin, with a permanent record eliminating any opportunity to enter at a future date.
Any temporary, visitor or student visa conditions must be enforced, with zero ability to convert to asylum or refugee status on such a visa.
The asylum and refugee claims process must be done in the country of origin, and such claims must be extremely limited and tightly controlled.
This is the correct response to combat the massive ineffectiveness and corruption in our immigration systems and prevent them from drifting toward a form of global charity we can ill afford.
Soft border control must cease.
It’s also very clear that national border control and security needs to be significantly changed, and based on the recorded abuse and low value to the economy the UN sanctioned refugee and migrant programs need to be abolished. In the words of a border guard...” if they think they have a chance to stay, they and many others will just keep coming.” If immigration control systems communicate to migrants that a chance exists for them to stay in the receiving nation while their “asylum” claim is being processed, then of course they will risk unapproved entry, but if the consequences of such an entry is made dire, with escalating penalties on any unapproved entry attempts, then this will send a strong message to deter future attempts.
Far Less Foreign Students
We need to rethink and better communicate that the student visa will be for “study only” and does NOT include a work visa.
To maintain revenue from foreign students’ western nations could offer remote learning programs in the student’s country of origin. This could include setting up electronic testing and final exam systems to ensure testing integrity. This would limit the drain on our public services such as housing & health systems etc.
This would deter “students” who are not interested in education, but see the current immigration and education systems as a back door ticket to work and entry to the western nations. These people currently displace educational resources that must be better provided to our current citizens of all ages.
National productivity must be the prime goal.
The reason national governments have given for embracing significant immigration is that economists have convinced them that the greater the population level the more national output (GDP) will be generated. This is purported to provide more taxes that can be collected to support the government and its services. Also, it’s argued that ageing and declining western populations needs more immigration.
The flaw in these arguments is that what is really needed is more productivity to pay for a given size of population. So, adding more population without more productivity just does not work.
The real solution is to add capital, technology and learning to an existing population to improve the productivity rate per population. This will mean the need for less population for a given consumption, and suggests the need for far better structured immigration that is far better planned to contribute to maintaining or improving the national productivity.
The learning capacity liberated by restructuring the foreign student programs can be better deployed to service the citizen learning programs that we badly need to re-life the existing citizen workforce to gain back productivity and prosperity.
We need to get out of the business of assimilating and educating other nations’ people, and focus our efforts on improving our national productivity. We can do this by making far better use of the currently highly under-employed citizen resources, before we import even more human resources.
Industry 4.0
It’s clear that new technologies such as Industry 4.0 including Artificial intelligence will drive productivity and the need for less labor per population level.
Also, to achieve a far more balanced and productive economy the western nations must reshore the value adding industries to improve national productivity and boost citizen job prosperity.
The other opportunity is to have the western nations improve government productivity and reduce government labor resources, so they can be redeployed from the public sector to support any growth in the private sectors when its industries are reshored.
But powerful learning systems must be in place to provide retraining to re-life the national citizen workforce to support such a transition to a far more balanced economy.
All these important and much needed initiatives will further reduce the demand for mass immigration.
The way forward…
Western nations must rethink the use and shape of their immigration process and the national labor force. They must find ways to do more with less through innovation and technology in all forms.
It will require an integrated learning system for its citizens, and far less unplanned immigration.
The prime goal must be to provide prosperity to the citizen population that they can earn and deserve.
Nigel Southway is based in Toronto Canada and is an independent business consultant and recently authored the advocacy book Take Back Manufacturing. He is also the author of Cycle Time Management: The Fast Track to Time-Based Productivity Improvement, an early textbook on the concept of LEAN thinking and Six Sigma, and how to implement it.
He consults and educates worldwide on Business Productivity Improvement, Advanced Manufacturing Engineering, Sustainable Supply Chain Management, Industry 4.0, National Sustainability & Prosperity, Global technology transfer projects and joint ventures and more.
He has gained experience assisting clients across a wide range of business sectors and industries and helps clients develop a strategy and a vision to attack waste, capture productivity improvements, increase profits, and become more competitive in the global market.
He is a part time professor for Canadian Colleges and lectures on Advanced Manufacturing and Global Supply Chain Management.
He is a past chair of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and the leading advocate and spokesperson for the Take Back Manufacturing (TBM) Forum, and the North American Reshoring initiative in Canada.