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Number of Britons in work falls by 270,000 - because migrants get most new jobs
Last updated at 00:52am on 02.11.07
Carol Flint: Workforce update
The number of Britons in work has fallen sharply in the past two years, Whitehall figures have shown.
Despite an economic boom that has created tens of thousands of jobs, the new posts are largely going to migrants.
An estimated 540,000 foreigners have found work in Britain over the past 18 months. But at the same time the native workforce has shrunk by 270,000.
The disclosure is a fresh embarrassment to ministers who have had to dramatically revise upwards the official figures on migrant workers.
The latest numbers - given to MPs by Employment Minister Caroline Flint - show that since spring last year, 330,000 workers from Europe and 210,000 from elsewhere have found employment in the UK.
But the 270,000 fall in the number of working Britons means the labour force has increased by only 270,000 over the period.
The figures add to fears that growing numbers of Britons are falling back on the welfare state while foreigners carry out low-paid work.
The arrival of large numbers of migrants is also depressing wages - a further disincentive to Britons to work and a barrier to Gordon Brown's pledge of 'British jobs for British workers'.
Yesterday, Communities Secretary Hazel Blears tried to shift blame for the earlier, faulty employment figures on to the Office for National Statistics.
"These are not Government figures - the independent figures from the Office for National Statistics. It's independent as I say, it's not Government figures," she told BBC Radio Four's Today Programme.
The ONS is, however, under the direct control of the Treasury until April.
Pensions Secretary Peter Hain had released a statement to MPs on Monday night, admitting that the longstanding estimate that 800,000 foreign workers had taken jobs in Britain since 1997 was wrong.
The true number, he confessed, was 1.1million.
The next day, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith tried to put the figures in a good light by saying that most new jobs had gone to Britons.
She was rapidly proved wrong, with Government studies showing that native workers had taken up only 48 per cent of the new posts.
The figures cover the period up to 2003 - since when at least 700,000 Eastern Europeans have joined the workforce, further limiting opportunities for Britons.
David Cameron yesterday accused ministers of panicking over immigration.
The Tory leader said on GMTV that it was "important to get control of immigration, rather than throw your hands up and sort of panic, like the Government has done this week, and start having to promise more money.
"Immigration is too high, we do benefit from it, but we would benefit if actually we had slightly lower levels of net immigration.
"Currently about 200,000 people, net, are coming into this country each year. I think that's too high, and we would like to see a substantial cut."
Mr Cameron won praise yesterday from the Government's equality
chief, Trevor Phillips, who said: "For the first time in my adult life I heard a party leader clearly attempting to deracialise the issue of immigration and to treat it like any other question of political and economic management."
His Equalities and Human Rights Commission yesterday announced an inquiry into the 'widespread perception' that immigrants are jumping housing queues.
Mr Phillips said the belief that foreigners were gaining "unfair advantages" was fuelling tensions.
"I have never seen any reliable evidence to back up this claim. But I don't think it is enough merely to dismiss the suggestion," he added. "We really need to inform it with robust, independent evidence."
Critics of the social housing system say migrants inevitably get priority for homes over long-established residents because they can always show their need, as measured by poverty and homelessness, is greater.
Mr Phillips backed the Local Government Association's call for a £250million-a-year fund to help regions struggling to cope with large influxes of migrants.
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