The recent controversy over whether or not Germany has offered Kenya 250,000 jobs for suitably qualified young people, is a reminder of just how much misunderstanding surrounds this issue of migrant labour.
And I should add here that “migrant labour,” and “illegal immigrants” are two very separate issues, even though virtually all undocumented immigrants move to countries like Germany specifically in the hope of achieving the status of migrant labour.
But definitions aside, this issue is a perfect example of how opposing – and in many ways equally valid – priorities make it exceedingly difficult to solve socioeconomic problems through appropriate policy.
In this case the opposing priorities are first, the lure of “identity politics” and second, the imperatives of economic growth.
Let me start with economic growth:
In Germany as in many other European nations, it has been clear for many years now, that internal population growth is simply not fast enough to replace an ageing workforce in the factories and offices which employ large numbers of people. Even with widespread automation in factories and digitisation of bureaucratic functions, still more workers are needed than are available.
And though the euphemism we usually read is that these highly industrialised nations need more “skilled workers,” there are actually far more jobs available in modest positions like cooks, cleaners, drivers, “assisted living” support staff, etc.
Kenya happens to have a huge surplus of trained personnel in all these fields – a tribute to the willingness of Kenyan parents to sacrifice just about anything to launch their children into some kind of profession.
So in Europe there is a massive demand and we in Kenya are in a position to provide a steady supply of the required staff. And as a matter of economic necessity, countries like Germany really have no choice but to import additional labour, if they are not to be eventually marginalised by the ascendency of China.
But this is where such economic necessity comes up against the raw power of identity politics:
In almost every country, and indeed every community, people have a powerful desire to live among “their own kind.”
That is why in most parts of rural Kenya, you will find that an overwhelming majority of the people living in what they regard as their “ancestral land” all speak the same language.
This is also the reason why – apart from a few token MPs or MCAs – elected leaders in Kenya are invariably people who speak the local language, and belong to the same tribe, sub-tribe, or even clan.
So if there were rumours of a possible large influx of “foreigners” into any Kenyan tribe’s ancestral lands, it is unlikely that the locals would regard this as good news.
This is the perspective that must be borne in mind when considering the various “far right” parties of Europe and their leaders. There may indeed be some hardcore, irredeemable racists in these parties’ leadership. But I believe that the majority are just politicians ruthless enough to instrumentalise the irrational fears and unfounded biases of their fellow citizens and use the issue of illegal immigration as a convenient path to power.
They know very well that the liberal and centrist parties are just facing facts, in seeking to get more workers from India or Kenya to take up jobs in their rich countries, to make up for labour shortages.
But they also know that a good number of their citizens – however irrationally – fear the arrival of dark-skinned strangers on their shores, and so do not distinguish between legally admitted guest workers (whose main ambition is to save money and send it back home) and illegal immigrants (many of whom pay smugglers to get them into Europe by any means available, and often have no particular qualifications, and may end up in a life of crime).
Such then are the dynamics of this controversy.
How it will all turn out, we can only guess.
