Alan Manning

Rising racism blamed for collapse in number of foreign nurses coming to UK Number of overseas nurses and midwives registered between April and September was half that of a year ago

I can believe rising racial abuse in NHS is a serious problem needing attention but to write an article saying declining number of new migrant healthcare workers is about declining supply without mentioning declining demand seems strange to me www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

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Advert for a book launch event hosted by the Resolution Foundation, for Alan Manning's new book 'Why Immigration Policy is Hard.'' Alan will be joined by Stephen Bush in a discussion chaired by Ruth Curtice on Thursday 4th December, 5pm.

📢 Book launch this evening

In his latest book, @alanmanning4.bsky.social makes the case that while immigration policy will never satisfy everyone, that doesn’t mean it can’t be done much better.

Join Alan, @ruthcurtice.bsky.social & @stephenkb.bsky.social to discuss

Register👉 buff.ly/0jtepcy

Immigration policy is hard, involving difficult decisions and trade-offs. But, as Alan Manning makes clear, this doesn't mean that we can't do better.

'Why Immigration Policy Is Hard' is an indispensable resource for informed debate on one of the most charged subjects in public life.

Why Immigration Policy Is Hard: And How to Make It Better Why Immigration Policy Is Hard: And How to Make It Better, Immigration policy will never satisfy everyone. It’s a stubborn fact that more people will want to move to high-income countries than residen...

Shameless self-publicity. My new book "Why Immigration Policy Is Hard And How To Make It Better" is out.
www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...

Advert for a book launch event hosted by the Resolution Foundation, for Alan Manning's new book 'Why Immigration Policy is Hard.'' Alan will be joined by Stephen Bush in a discussion chaired by Ruth Curtice on Thursday 4th December, 5pm.

📖Book launch next week📖

In his latest book, @alanmanning4.bsky.social makes the case that while immigration policy will never satisfy everyone, that doesn’t mean it can’t be done much better.

Join Alan, @ruthcurtice.bsky.social and @stephenkb.bsky.social to discuss.

Register➡️ buff.ly/0jtepcy

Labour needs a way out of the infernal circle of immigration policy Politics today is about ‘open vs closed’, but the UK government’s approach risks appeasing no one

Excellent column from @stephenkb.bsky.social on what
@alanmanning4.bsky.social refers to as the “infernal circle” of immigration policy www.ft.com/content/1144...

Not sure it’s analogous to other services exports as students are resident with costs of providing public infrastructure as OBR recognises that unis don’t pay. Can debate whether levy too high or low but closer perhaps to hotel tourist tax which is meant to cover public costs associated with stay.

NEW EPISODE

Can Britain break out of migration madness? Former head of the Migration Advisory Committee Prof Alan Manning joins us to talk about the “infernal cycle” of migration policy … whether Labour really are just trying to outbid the Tories and Reform 👉 linktr.ee/ohgodwhatnow...

#ukpolitics

Asylum seekers to be housed in barracks as Keir Starmer seeks to tackle immigration UK government confirms it is looking at interpretation of ECHR after prime minister carries out cabinet reshuffle

Lots of articles in recent weeks - including the FT - abt the public conflating immigration as a whole with asylum-seekers. But then we have headlines like this...
www.ft.com/content/b9da...

Isn’t it arguable that it was the liberalisations of the Tories under Boris (later partially reversed) that contributed to their destruction.

Dairy farmers say worker shortage is threatening UK food security The Arla cooperative says five in six farmers receive very few or zero applications for job vacancies

Yet another article about worker shortages that fails to tell us about offered pay and conditions. Please journalist - just ask. Or, failing that, look at online job ads. Its not hard. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Why the social care visa had to go - British Politics and Policy at LSE Labour's immigration White Paper has proposed closing the social care visa route for workers from overseas. This was a needed change to a flawed system.

In a new blog @alanmanning4.bsky.social explains why change was needed to the "seriously flawed" social care visa route and how the government now needs to deliver on its promise to make care work a more attractive job.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/poli...

Why the social care visa had to go. TLDR; in long-run it’s an expensive and ineffective way to hire care workers.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...

Sponsored Work and Family visa earnings, employment and Income Tax

Great to finally see data like this being published. Though more data means more opportunities for cherry-picking so look out for that. www.gov.uk/government/p...

Whatever happened to the great truck driver shortage? The underlying problems behind the crisis have not yet been resolved

‪Great to hear from @sarahoconnorft.ft.com ft.ft.com
abt what happened to the UK truck driver shortage. Short-run: higher pay helped a lot. Medium-run: still structural issues making it hard to offer competitive pay and conditions.
www.ft.com/content/f320...

1/ 🚨 New paper! 🚨
How do the economic trajectories of children of immigrants vary across 15 high-income countries? We study intergenerational mobility of immigrants, using individual-level linked parent-child data across Europe, North America, and beyond. 🧵👇 #EconSky

Latest paper on comparing intergenerational mobility of the kids of migrants with kids of locals in 15 countries. It has a very long author list so I feel like a real scientist at last. www.iza.org/publications...

Cross-party talks on adult social care reform in England to start next month Wes Streeting hit back at claims that Casey commission would take too long to act, saying ‘it’s reporting next year’

Good to see this happening. Important to have right not rushed decision. And that the labour market in social care is part of remit as current model doesn’t work. Lab mkt wasn’t really in Dilnot report as not part of their commission www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

New discussion paper with @tessahall.bsky.social on immigration and productivity.

TLDR;

Evidence consistent with view nothing especially good (or bad) about migrants; they are only human

cep.lse.ac.uk/_NEW/PUBLICA...

Economists need to get their story straight on immigration Focusing on the impact on the wages or employment levels of native workers is too narrow

Good col from @sarahoconnorft.bsky.social. I think a lot of motivated reasoning on immig. Too many commentators start from view immig is good (or bad), then use any argument that comes to mind to make preferred case without bothering much about intellectual inconsistency
www.ft.com/content/2bb6...

I think this might be the first sighting of the word monopsony in the Guardian. Though it’s in inverted commas so some way still to acceptance. amp.theguardian.com/sport/2024/o...

“There is legitimate concern that zero-hours contracts are used to shift risk from employers onto lower-paid workers” @alanmanning4.bsky.social

in CentrePiece magazine:

cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/d...

UK government not considering Scottish visa to attract migrants - BBC News Sir Keir Starmer has been urged to transfer powers to the Scottish government to help address labour shortages.

Separate Scottish visa a bad idea unless v small pilot for remote areas. If scotland has demographic problem its long-term. Temporarily increasing population doesnt solve it. Migrants on a visa like this are likely to leave when they can. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

BBC Sounds - Rethink, Rethink... immigration Is the UK more divided than ever over immigration, or are there areas of consensus?

Perhaps this won't go quite as viral as an exploding cow but Rethink Immigration is on at 4pm today on Radio 4, where I'm joined by the dream team of @sundersays.bsky.social, Rob Colvile, Madeleine Sumption and @alanmanning4.bsky.social.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Yes. When employers struggling to recruit they will often look to immigration to solve problem as they don’t like raising wages. Challenge for migration policy is to make sure there is some pressure to raise wages but not so much pressure they can’t cope

Sometimes nominal - think of P&O on Dover-Calais ferries - but probably more common to be real. Pressure on employers to raise wages is reduced if easy access to new workers even if they don’t cut nominal.

Anand Menon on racism: the UK has made progress, but this year's riots show there's a long way to go - Tortoise One of Britain's leading public intellectuals reflects on how racism – and his experience of it – has changed over the last 50 years

I wrote quite a personal piece about racism now and racism then. Have a read…. www.tortoisemedia.com/2024/10/04/a...

Errr I think this piece is over-simplified. A better framing is immigration can be used to reduce wages but doesn’t have to. And perhaps our immigration policy should make sure it doesn’t.

Overseas student and worker curbs will cost UK business £40bn, say official estimates Home Office assessments come as new Labour government presses ahead with curbs on immigration

Not sure I get the economics of HO Impact Assessment on cost to business of higher salary thresholds on work visas. Seems to be mostly transfers from profits to migrant workers (who are now residents) which gets scored as big cost. Perhaps I'm missing something; help!
www.ft.com/content/e2df...