The main advantages of immigration are economic gain and an increase of skilled workers in certain sectors, as well as an increase in the diversity of culture and an improvement in lifestyle for the immigrants themselves. Immigrants tend to take jobs that citizens of a country do not want to take. This assists both the producers and consumers and therefore has a positive effect on the economy. Immigrants are classed as a low cost workforce. By keeping cost of employment down, these benefits will eventually be passed onto the consumers as goods can be sold at lower prices. Cultural diversity is another huge advantage of immigration, as numbers of people from certain countries will automatically bring with them their eating habits, musical tastes and other cultural differences. This enables the citizens of a country to experience a more diverse way of living, as well as getting to understand and appreciate other cultures. Immigrants can normally offer skills that are not available in the country they emigrate to. This increases the benefit of the industry as the more workers an industry has for low cost labour, the more benefits can be passed onto the consumers. People only tend to emigrate to a country if they feel they will have a better standard of living, and the quality of life is increased by immigration. Immigrants will have better opportunities, and have better chances to achieve goals they may have set themselves. Immigration does have some disadvantages, however, and examples of these include an increase in crime, greater poverty, a lower unskilled wage base and rising education costs. Crime could increase if immigrants were unable to get work, or if citizens were unable to get work because of immigration. Poverty would also increase due to a higher percentage of people being employed on a low unskilled wage and the cost of education could rise due to language barriers and cultural diversity.
