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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.
Reader views (13)
Here's a sample of the latest views published.
I live up in Aberdeen and I can tell anyone reading this that priority is given to migrants. I used to do a lot of work through a job agency. Mainly pipe slinging, tank cleaning and some driving. I noticed about 8 months ago they stopped phoning me despite my good work record for them. I kept calling them and began to get worried so I went down to one their office. I hadn't been in the office for months but there right in front of me was a waiting room full of Polish guys and there were signs up on the wall in Polish and leaflets and everything. When I got to see my agency contact see the boy was totally lying to me I could tell by the way he talked and he couldn’t look at me straight. He said there’s just nothing available. I asked him come how all those Polish guys are here and he said they're just registering. They weren't, some were in filling in time sheets I saw them. It turns out this local company mostly work with Polish guys. My last job with them paid me £6.20 an hour but I know now the company is giving the Polish guys £5.50. That's the reason I don’t have a job with them.
For six months now I have been unemployed so no MP is telling me migrants have been good for me. it wasn’t as if I was a bad worker or demanded loads of money or anything. I hate when I see the papers saying British people don't want to work.
I’m thinking about moving to England and try and pass myself off as a migrant worker. I cant get a job in this city no matter where I go. Polish can not me.
- David Mcleod, Aberdeen
I work in food manufacturing, I have worked in 3 different locations in 6 years and each site is made up of 70 - 80% foreign workers, language is a problem despite what is said. I think this says it all.
- A P, Kings Lynn, Norfolk
It wouldn't be so bad but the quality of the engineers I see coming in from offshore is disgraceful - and these people are now in control of our telephone network!
- I am a software engineer contractor working for BT and have seen nearly all of my colleagues were replaced by people who can't code better than my 8 year old son.
- Chris Dobbs, Hull
There are a great number of people out there who, despite their nationality, want to work and do so. These people to me are not the issue here and neither is their nationality. We have made a society, prior to our large influx of migrants, which make our shores a very attractive place to be. How many other countries provide as well as we do.
Of course this requires money and lot of it. Foreign nationals, in my experience come to our shores to work, to provide for their families and to attain a better life for themselves. What is wrong with that, they want to add to, not take away from our country and in doing so "do their bit". Their work ethics and productivity far exceeds our usual efforts. Why, because this is how they were raised, what kind of people they are. (In general and I deal with all walks of life in my day to day job).
The problem is that more and more of our home grown "workers" don't want to do their bit. They sit at home all day, as their role models before, adding nothing to society, draining more than their share from our over-stretched resources. If these people were encouraged, (made) to work, at a level which they are able, would the jobs be available and would we have our influx of workers?
If the jobs are there, who should fill them, if not the willing then who?
- Gs, Truro, Cornwall
I wonder what the Nu Labor guys are going to say now?
- Georgie, Islington, London
Stuart...
the bad news is, if you incapable of getting a job in the UK, which particular country do you think will want you at the pay rate you require. Sorry that's market forces - we have free movement of capital and labour in the EU...the alternative is protectionist policies which would further play into the hands of the emerging economies.
It is a tough world.
- Martin, Guildford
Stuart of London: "there is nothing we can do to stop [migration]".
Stuart, perhaps voting Labour out of office would be a start. The Tories have said that they will put a cap on immigration. I am going to give them a chance at the next election to prove that they will implement this cap.
- Anthony, London
If someone wants to work they can easily get a job in this country. Unfortunately, the Labour Government has made it easier and more beneficial to not work.
- Jk, London
If the welfare state reigned in such generous handouts, these people who are complaining of migrants stealing their jobs would be forced to get of their sofa's and join them in work. It's easy, the migrants wouldn't come here if there was no jobs, and the indiginous unemployed would be forced to work if welfare was cut.
- Ian, London
Maybe when we the taxpayers, who also spend our money here, have become migrants ourselves ie middle England then there will be nobody left to keep replenishing the 'pot'. Who will be paying for the 'government's' second homes then?
- Thelma H, Essex
The immigration issue is not only affecting us but all European countries...the increase in crime let alone the jobs issue.
Our politicians and the European ones in the EU do little to actually control this, they are unaffected but this has got out of control.
- Nigel, Wimbledon
Possibly this is because some organisations are run by migrants, who favour their own countrymen above British workers. Wasn't there a case recently where you had to speak Polish in order to fit in with the other workers in a food factory, and so this effectively excluded most British applicants?
It's not "British jobs for British workers" Gordon, but migrant jobs for migrant workers!
- Mm, Hackney
Who said immigration was a positive thing. It is turning into an absolute nightmare and there is nothing we can do to stop it except become migrants ourselves.
- Stuart, London
