cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19930828
this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2024
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To be fair, the canadian minister of immigration recently admitted that they should have slowed down on immigration sooner.
Landlords and shareholders do have incentives to drive rent up and wages down, and immigration is one way to do it. The housing and job market crisis aren't there for no reason, and it's partly due to immigration.
A politician pandering to the Right doesn't make it true.
Nope. Nobody's forcing employers to exploit immigrants desperate enough to work for less due to fewer opportunities and less support.
Likewise, housing is much more expensive than simple demand would dictate. Landlords aren't charging as much as is fair all things considered, or even as much as people can generally afford. They're charging the absolute maximum that they can get away with, which is usually more than people can afford.
That's how all economics works. If you found a job where, in your opinion, you were really overpaid for the work burden - would you go to your boss and ask them to pay you less?
The root of the housing problem is undersupply, which imo is due to a nationwide patchwork of NIMBY policies driven by Boomer landlords, especially in big cities. Younger people and renters just don't fucking vote, especially in the local elections where housing policies are decided. So Boomer retirees ensure that 95% of the city is zoned for single family housing, and no apartments can get built.
If that's how economics works, just giving us the perfect argument for why economics is a bullshit field. Human beings need shelter to survive. It's a human right. It's one of those super important things, up there with water and food.
If you're buying into an economic system that doesn't make sure that right is filled, then you have a problem with morality, and perhaps also mortality.
Economics is a soft science. Economics is not about describing how things should work, economics is about describing how things do work. Whether you want to support the system or tear it down, understanding it is extremely helpful to either cause.
I mean, tell that to economists? In my experience, they are extremely dogmatic. With vanishingly few exceptions, every economist I've ever heard, seen, or read in any media acts as though whatever model they subscribe to is gospel, and that any issues you might have with it must therefore stem from a lack of understanding, rather than from the faulty assumptions underlying it.
ETA a recent example: Harvard economics professor and former Obama economic adviser Jason Furman on Jon Stewart's podcast.
Economists talking to the media are typically pushing for policy proposals, and in pushing for policy, a "never admit uncertainty" sort of deal is in play to avoid a soundbite where an economist says something that can be played as five-second mockery to sink said policy proposal.
Economists writing in academia can be stubborn and at times utterly bizarre, but are genuinely discussing models and theories the same way sociology does.
Yeah, I think there's also a lot of tone-deafness among economists, that seems to reflect a lack of understanding (or at least acknowledgment) that the economy is built on—and designed to perpetuate—massive inequality. The average person derives comparatively little benefit from an economy which is—on paper—booming, because the profits are overwhelmingly siphoned off by the wealthy. This is probably mostly a problem with the way the economy is reported on by the media, but economists are the face of that.
I don't have an opinion on housing, but that's not how job market works. The final decision to employ an immigrant ultimately comes down the HR & company. Saying that "immigrants took our job" is like loosing an auction and saying "they took your painting"
They tried that over here with Brexit. Those darned immigrants stealing our jobs (while also just living off benefits, of course). EU citizens were like, screw this. They left, suddenly farmers were faced with their produce rotting in the fields, because guess what? The Brits don't actually want to do those jobs.
So what do you think happened next? They had to allow special visas to lure immigrants back in.
Meanwhile, the gammons were still raging that immigrants lower wages because they'll work for less pay than UK citizens.
Yup, I have read about that situation, pretty funny looking at it from outside
Usually you have a choice in participating in an auction, even get to set your bid.
Yes, but if you facilitate access to foreign workers, let's say with a "temporary foreign worker program", like it is the case in Canada, companies will go after them first because they are cheap labor and are easy to abuse. Meanwhile, there are new graduates who struggle to find jobs.
It does not help canadians and it does not help foreigners. Sure, we can always blame the companies, but the government also has it's part of responsibility by enabling this.
Okey let's take a look what that program is, citation from Wikipedia :
It looks to me that the shortage was the reason why program was initiated. So from the information I have, it looks to me you have it backward.
And then you have companies displaying highly skilled job offers at minimum wage knowing nobody sane will apply. Then they claim that no canadian can be hired for their job and they need foreigners. They end up hiring foreigners for half the wage they would pay a canadian and exploit them all they want.
Foreigners are attractive because they don't know their rights and their value and can easily be abused.
Sure, the program has been created because of a worker's shortage, but now that jobs are scarce there is no reason to keep it up. --And that's why the different governments are starting to say that it has to stop.
This year, the largest job fair in Montréal had the double of attendant they had last year. 8000 people looking for a job. Half of them were newly arrived, the other 50% were either jobless, already on the job market or recently graduated.
And TFW program aside, the same principle goes for the housing market. It's much easier to convince some europeans to pay 1500$ a month for a 3-rooms apartment because they are used to expensive housing. They will generally be less informed about our consumer protection laws and accept any lease, legal or not.
If you want to see it with a more humanitarian perspective, what's the point of getting so many immigrants if we can't house them properly or give them proper jobs? It's not helping them and it's not helping us that much.