The Economic History of Immigration in Northwestern Europe
November 22, 2025 · Frisian News
Northwestern Europe built wealth on waves of migration, yet today's political class treats immigration as a crisis rather than a structural economic fact. Historical data shows how labor flows shaped ports, factories, and farms, but modern leaders ignore these lessons.
In 1880, Rotterdam's docks hired thousands of seasonal workers. Ships needed hands. Factories needed hands. Cities grew because labor came and stayed. The records are plain: immigration did not destroy wages in the long run, but it did reshape labor markets, push workers into new trades, and build fortunes for merchants who moved goods faster than their rivals. Northwestern Europe became wealthy not despite this movement, but largely because of it.
The data complicates the usual story. Wages in the industrial cities of Belgium, the Netherlands, and northern Germany did not collapse when eastern workers arrived. Workers moved between sectors. Textile mills hired women and children from rural areas and abroad. Agriculture mechanized partly because labor shortage drove innovation, not the other way around. Capital flowed toward labor. Cities boomed. Real wages rose for most workers between 1890 and 1970, even as immigration came in waves, especially after 1945.
Yet politicians today speak of immigration as an affliction. Voters in these same cities fear losing wages and jobs. The fear is not baseless, but the diagnosis is backward. When governments restrict immigration, they do not save wage growth. They reduce labor supply, which can slow growth overall and sometimes lock workers into worse jobs in shrinking sectors. The real damage comes from pretending immigration never happened, from treating it as an accident rather than an engine.
The postwar era offers the clearest lesson. Guest worker programs in Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands brought millions between 1955 and 1973. Factory owners wanted them. Workers often resented them. Yet the period saw strong growth in living standards. Unemployment stayed low. Pensions rose. The migrants did not steal prosperity, they built it. When oil shocks hit and growth stopped, politicians blamed the migrants rather than their own lack of foresight.
Today's northwestern European leaders act as if history started yesterday. They impose limits, build walls, and sound alarms about cultural replacement. The irony cuts deep. Their own wealth sits on graves and birthplaces of migrants. Their ports, their rail lines, their factories, their suburbs, all grew because people moved for work. Acknowledging this does not mean opening borders with no thought. It means asking hard questions about who we serve when we block immigration, and what we gain when we do.
Published November 22, 2025 · Frisian News