[jzackpete]

Because immigration (i.e. increasing the labor pool, increasing competition in the labor market, increasing demand for housing) actively harms the average member of the electorate? I fail to see how working _more_ hours is a consequence of fewer workers chasing the same number of jobs (unless you believe the average non-western immigrant comes here, starts a business, and employs at least one native born person.)

[illiac786]

Don’t know where you live but where I live there is simply no one born here willing to do the hard jobs: harvesting, kitchen cook, cleaning, construction, etc. Only immigrants. There is beging this a lack of workforces at all levels, it’s scary, even hair dressers can’t find people. And additionally population is aging fast, no one left to pay the pensions, 2 worker pay the pension of one retired person – which is not possible and hence pensions is the biggest deficit of the government. Immigration is a net positive here, but it scares people, because right extremists make it look scary with lies, like the one the triggered the riots in England recently.

I live in Germany.

[jzackpete]

No one born there (and where I'm from as well) is willing to do the hard jobs at the current market rate. Every conversation about a "labor shortage" seems to disingenuously pretend that wages are a fixed part of the equation.

Wages never rise because everyone falls for the propaganda that immigration is a "net positive" (and it is only a net positive for the capital-owning class who sell out their countrymen in favor of lower employment costs.) Do non-western immigrants in Germany contribute more in taxes than they receive in benefits (on average?)

[illiac786]

Ok, valid point.

Problem 1 is, no one is willing to pay goods at the price that would result from paying the required wage to get “native” workers.

Problem 2 is, there isn’t enough workers in a lot of professions. Raising wages isn’t going to make workforce appear out of thin air.