I run a business based in Kent (just down the road from woodyoulike

hiya) and employ people PAYE and self employed. I’m paying more for skilled labour than I was last year even with the influx of migrant workers and I’m sure I'll be paying more next year.
There is also loads of work about in the South for all skilled trades so I’m not sure what people are doing wrong when they state they are having to take a cut in their income because of migrant workers?
More and more of the bigger construction companies are introducing CSCS skill cards for all site workers so anyone who thinks you can just turn up from Eastern Europe and work in the construction industry is misinformed. That’s not say it doesn’t happen in other industries – restaurants – security – hotels - farm etc.
As I’ve said before, a migrating work force is nothing new. We had the Irish potato famine in 1845 the influx of Asians in the 60’s the northern work force and so on. Many people I know went to Germany in the 70’s to build houses, they went to Saudi to build anything (and got paid a fortune) and now quite a few are in Dubai.
I think the point people are missing in this discussion is how we manage an expanding LEGAL work force within an ever expanding EU. Market forces will bring more workers to the UK than other countries and in time that will affect us like it or not.
When and if Turkey joins the EU the migrating work force within the EU may be huge so IMO we need to get the ground rules sorted out now to try and minimise the impact this may have.
There will also be the fringe element of the LEGAL migration which will abuse any system so once again IMO this also needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.
Anybody who watches the satellite news channel EU News will know the opinions expressed by some people on this site are not confined to a minority in the UK. Unless something is done to put people worries to bed there’s a good chance this will get out of hand right across the EU.
The illegal trafficking of people and illegal immigration is another subject and has nothing to do with steve0045’s original post.