UK Recession Hits African Migrant Workers

By Joyce Omuse

LONDON---At the moment Britain is in the middle of a serious recession. The last time such a recession occurred was 1930. It was aptly named The Great depression. Scores of people and companies were ruined financially. General consensus postulates that it was caused by a crash in the Stock market. Private and public companies, personal savings both modest and otherwise were wiped out seemingly in an instant. The result was inflation, wide spread unemployment and poverty. This one is proving to be just as destructive. The popular name for this recession is-The Great Recession.

Experts are still debating the causes of the recession. Popular choices are inflation, the housing bubble and a commodity boom. Whatever the reason, the effects are being felt worldwide. But what does all this mean for the regular person in the U.K? Keeping in mind that London is in the top 20 most expensive cities in the world to live in. Businesses of all sizes have failed in alarming numbers. Redundancies have become commonplace. Families have lost their homes and savings. Jobs have become more and more elusive, and record numbers of people are seeking relief from the government. The devastation is real.

There has been a big stink about bailouts by the government to banks and other institutions of like calibre. Taxpayers are angry about this considering the obscene bonuses paid to executives who run these institutions. Perhaps even the thought that other smaller institutions were more deserving of help. The government has its work cut out for it, and some figures even show a modest recovery. One thing is clear to everyone, it will take many years to come out of this recession and even more years to repair the damage.

There is a demographic with unique characteristics existing in the U.K; Africans in the Diaspora. There is the everyman regular resident; and then there is the everyman regular resident who is an immigrant and maintains contact with his/her original country.

A person’s expenses have to be carefully watched and budgeted under the best of circumstances. Everyone has the standard bills. Rent or mortgage payments, council tax, road tax, commuting expenses, congestion charges etc. But for each immigrant there is another item on that list; money to send home. Whatever job an immigrant has, he/she is supporting at least one family back home. There is a widely believed fable in every corner of the continent that if one lives in the west- one must have some money to spare. Africans are under pressure to keep their jobs sometimes at the cost of taking a pay cut, support their families  (all their families) and by some miracle have something saved for the future. The recession is proving a cruel hardship for Africans who emigrated to create a better life.

Financial terms and projections about the future are no longer just sections of the news that one endures in order to get to the sports news. Interest rates and inflation are no longer concepts one considers when taking a loan, buying a house or a car. They are present every single day, in every decision that one makes.