UK Economy Stagnated in July as Headwinds Grow Before Budget
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
I've noticed a downwards trend in almost all manners of living here over the past 10 years, and can't really see what any government could do to change course.
Admit that Brexit was a terrible idea, and get close the the EU Again. Rejoining is not feasible for now, but alignment and free trade with our neighbours would have economic benefits.
A UK government won't do it, of course.
Portugal seems like a good choice because of its digital nomad visa and after 5 years of living there I could apply for naturalisation and regain freedom of movement in the EU.
Could a lot of a malaise just be "grass is greener on the other side" syndrome, or that you aren't as looped into Japanese political discourse the same way you might be in Anglophone countries?
I've seen a similar trend of trying to find greener grass amongst Japanese as well, though they tend to target South Korea, China, or ASEAN countries like Thailand and Vietnam.
I think the grass is greener syndrome is something that happens when on a few weeks visit, but I was there for 6 months. I made a fairer evaluation and still felt like Japan was better for me.
Everyone values different things in their life. Japan is closely aligned with the things I value most. Respect, safety, convenience, cleanliness, and so on.
If you were earning ¥3-4M a year (roughly the average salary in Japan), would you feel the same about Japan?
Like, to me London is great, but I also know if I was working remotely in the UK or for my employer I could demand a £90k-150k salary and live in Chelsea or Belgravia, so I would be living my best life - but it's also not an "authentic" London experience.
That's why I see plenty of Japanese doing a similar thing - take a ¥4-5M salary and live in Shanghai, Bangkok, or HCMC.
As individuals, it makes sense for us for rationalize the arbitrage, but we can't deny we are also causing affordability issues as well.
I guess what I'm getting at is at the median, the vast majority of developed countries are facing the same issues, but at a micro-level, we can use currency arbitrages to give us a better life - but it's only exacerbating the problem.
I can’t answer that question since I haven’t experienced it, but I did qualify I said above by saying that I’m aware I wasn’t getting the full picture working for a London-based employer.
I wasn’t living in Japan so to be there forever, I was living there to have a good 6 months. So what my life would be like as an ‘average salaryman’ isn’t really pertinent. Apples to apples as an average London salaryman (average not anywhere near £90k) vs average Tokyo salaryman I think I would be happier as the latter.
>a £90k-150k salary and live in Chelsea or Belgravia
Last I checked that salary range is not Chelsea or Belgravia money.
Jeez, that's horrid. I thought you could rent a 1 bedroom flat for around £2,000-£2,500/mo there?
> average not anywhere near £90k
Agreed, I thought I mentioned £50k-£60k but might have made a typo.
It's very hard to shake the impression that what is left in the tech industry there is loosely what you may call defense related. It's as if it's returned to the 1970s.
In London city it's mostly finance related.
Quebec has its own problems too, but the sense of pointlessness in the UK is something else.
Everyone I talk to from several EU countries feels the same: today we're an a much lower point than 10 years ago. Hell, where I am now in Austria, the country is the only one in EU with a GDP decline compared to last year, and a stagnation like UK would actually be an improvement lol.
Salaries in general have barely grown since 10 years with inflation adjustments, but housing is up several times compared to 10 years ago. Those I know who bought houses around 2014 keep thanking their lucky star since they admit they wouldn't be able to purchase the same home at the value of today on their wages of today.
I think the situation in Canada is exactly the same or maybe even worse.
So nobody in the west that I know of, thinks the situation is better now than 10 years ago. UK is no different than the rest of the west but they have this feeling that they are.
I've previously opened offices within the EU, and this is one of the downsides (for you guys) of the single market - why should I pay "market rate" German salaries when I can hire someone in Cluj, Lodz, Brno, or Sofia in the €20k-40k range, and be given a €5k-20k per head tax holiday along with fairly low corporate taxes from these countries.
> I think the situation in Canada is exactly the same or maybe even worse.
Canada is also a resource economy, and they got hit by the commodity glut really badly over the past few years.
It's not all about labor cost. For example some big companies opened large offices in Germany not because labor there is cheaper or smarter, but because they're the biggest regulator in Europe so hiring a lot of people there is a good way to gain political favoritism at EU level.
But yeah, if you want bang for the buck workers that take Jira tickets as input and churn out git commits, you can't beat eastern Europe.
Agreed. But do not underestimate how high corporate taxes and employer taxes are in Western Europe versus the CEE.
> For example some big companies opened large offices in Germany not because labor there is cheaper or smarter, but because they're the biggest regulator in Europe so hiring a lot of people there is a good way to gain political favoritism at EU level
Not in my experience. We can open a 20 person sales office and hire an outside GovRel consultancy to manage that.
> But yeah, if you want bang for the buck workers that take Jira tickets as input and churn out git commits, you can't beat eastern Europe
In my industry (cybersecurity, enterprise SaaS, DevTools), the ecosystem is largely clustered in Czechia, Romania, and Poland because of Sevices and IT specific FDI policies back in the 2000s and 2010s to attract those kinds of investments.
You can't find hundreds of engineers with internal knowledge of K8s internals or windows internals from an offense standpoint the same way you can in the CEE countries I listed.
At this point, the entire cybersecurity, DevTools, and Enterprise SaaS ecosystem is clustered in (no ranking) Israel, India, Poland, Romania, and Czechia.
The impact of the last 1–2 decades of policies and global/regional events may continue feeding through and making things worse (or at least stopping them getting much better) for some time. However, the fact that the change of government hasn’t magically fixed everything does not mean that it won’t eventually start to have a positive impact or that the direction of travel is one way. Equally, the new government is far from perfect and has made quite a few unforced errors alongside the positive changes, so success is far from guaranteed.
Of course, if people in general don’t start to believe it by the next election and we end up with a Reform government (or even more Tories given their current state), all bets are off.
Not post-Brexit, no.
With Brexit, the UK voted to cut itself off from its:
- nearest trading partner
- source of seasonal and low-paid workers
As a result:
- many businesses can't be bothered with the new paperwork that comes from being outside the zone
- many businesses struggle because the free-movement labour is no longer available, e.g. farmers need seasonal pickers, restaurants need seasonal front-of-house staff etc.
Farage also has a seat in parliament, both the major parties are terrified of him, and so they continue trying to out-Farage Farage at varying levels. Which is a terrifyingly dangerous game to play.
Then there's all the usual stories of decades of lack of investment in public services etc.
They replaced that with ease by issuing work visas to whoever wanted.
Generously setting aside the broader general question of factual accuracy of your statement...
Work Visa is not the same thing as freedom of movement
Let us revisit the example of seasonal farm labour:
Picking is a skilled task. You are paid by the piece, ergo to make good money you have to pick many pieces, and you have to pick every single one in a suitably skilled manner to avoid undue damage.
During the season, skilled pickers, mostly of Eastern European origin, would travel on coaches through Europe from farm-to-farm to pick and earn good money before returning home at the end of the season.
No prior visa application required, just turn up and leave when done.
Pre-Brexit, this "picking tour" would include the UK of course. And it would be double win-win for the pickers because GBP was traditionally strong against their home currencies. So earning in GBP gave them a standard of living boost back home.
Now post-Brexit, no UK citizen wants to be a seasonal picker. And nobody from abroad is going to go through the time (and expense !!) of getting a visa for seasonal picking.
Spare me your generosity, because I'm bringing receipts.
| Year | UK Immigration (K/000s) |
|------|-------------------------|
| 2014 | 630 |
| 2015 | 630 |
| 2016 | 650 |
| 2017 | 617 |
| 2018 | 580 |
| 2019 | 677 |
| 2020 | 616 |
| 2021 | 1,100 |
| 2022 | 1,200 |
| 2023 | 1,326 |
| 2024 | 948 |
Always has been, and will increasingly be because of its aging population.
As the old question goes .... who is going to wipe your arse when you are old and decrepit ?
It won't be a "Candice" or "Wayne" from Essex that's for sure. :p
Why move the goalposts? I was just fact checking you on your claim that UK removed access to low paid workers after Brexit when clearly they didn't, in fact they doubled immigration when you look at post-Brexit numbers, that's all. Whether huge immigration is good or not I didn't and won't get into.
What I miss most in London is the ambitious high skilled workers from the EU. London used to the place to go for the ambitious in Europe. Now they mostly stay in the EU and the London is more of a backwater.