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Comment by coolplants | Hacker News Reader

Why can’t you wait to see pro-brexit teams picking fruit, etc.? Are you implying that low-skill jobs are degrading/undignified?

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No, they're implying that there's been a failure by pro-leavers to acknowledge that many of these roles have been in the recent past been performed by immigrants from Europe.

Now with the UK's departure, employers may struggle to fill vacancies (and indeed it appears they have been - see link below), so the poster was sarcastically suggesting that they can't wait to see pro-leavers performing these tasks because it seems like in many cases UK nationals aren't willing to perform these types of roles.

The nature of the role is irrelevant and the poster wasn't suggesting that pro-leavers should be subject to degradation!

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/11/tonnes-of-c...

All we know is that UK nationals aren’t willing to do those jobs at the wages being offered. If employers raise wages to something liveable and decent then it’s reasonable to assume employment in those areas will increase.

Yes, of course. I was just explaining why I thought you'd misinterpreted the original poster's comment.

Well I think he was hostile and resentful and that’s not cool. I also sincerely and in good faith can’t wait to see less people exploited for cheap labor and more of my fellow Britons employed with a decent wage for once.

Hostile no, but I can see the market still needing unskilled labour of course, and I genuinely hope for your sake that it doesnt just cause the prices to increase dramatically.

I'm not from nor living in the UK but I sure hope things work out.

My post was a dig at the idea that all the UK needs to allow into the country is highly skilled people. I don't buy that argument.. But lets see.

You’re right, a relatively large influx of foreign workers of any skill level is harmful to all people, but especially the local people if it causes a reduction in wages.

If the cost of goods increases, it won’t likely be severe since it serves the entire population while only a small percentage of the population produce the goods. Also changing prices affects demand independently from cost of production.

And this is precisely why the "output per hour" is likely to go up post-Brexit for such jobs, although admittedly there are also plenty of high earners leaving the UK (though they'll eventually be replaced by qualified immigrants or locals).

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