Analysis of the relationship between International Immigration and Unemployement

[EN] The relationship between the unemployment and the international immigration is getting interest while the differences between poor and rich countries are stressed. The poor countries offer cheap work force to occupy less qualified jobs in rich countries, with citizen increasingly demanding and qualified. In spite of this evidence, the immigration is object of huge polemics and by this motive is being studied in those countries where this phenomenon is important. In this study, evidence of the unitary roots in the seasonal frequencies of the "Work Permits" and "Unemployment" series is provided. Because of this, the existence of seasonal cointegration between both series is tested. The results indicate that the only cointegrating relations between both variable are trivial and, therefore, the variables are not related in the long run. In the Short term, the estimate of the VAR model shows that the changes in the immigration during the years 1981-1998 hardly had effects on the unemployment. The opposite relationship, though statistically meaningful, it is also very weak.