UK’s 385,000 rise in employment last year driven by foreign-born workers as real terms wages fall
Official job figures revealed the number of British-born employees at the end of March was 1,000 down on last year
FOREIGN born workers have accounted for ALL of the net 385,000 rise in employment in the last year – it emerged yesterday.
Official job figures revealed the number of British born employees at the end of March was 1,000 down on the previous year.
The statistics showed the number of Romanians and Bulgarians in work has gone up by 80,000 or 219 a day in the past year to 311,000.
There was also a big rise in workers born in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australia and New Zealand.
And despite the bombshell Brexit vote last year, the number of workers from Western Europe but also east European nations such as Poland and Hungary is also up.
The job figures had otherwise given a pre-election boost to the Tories with overall employment up and the unemployment rate dropping to its lowest rate since 1975.
Stunned experts said it signalled that Britain was nearing “full employment”.
It’s the second successive quarter where the Office for National Statistics has revealed the number British born workers has fallen.
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Jonathan Portes, Kings College professor of economics, said: “As far as British workers are concerned, pretty much everyone who wants a job has one.”
“As a result, all the growth in the UK jobs market over the last year has come from people born abroad”.
Alp Mehmet, vice chair of Migration Watch, said it proved the Referendum result had not triggered an exodus. He said: “There are now 150,000 more EU workers in the UK than there were a year ago.
“It is time for business to stop panicking about their departure from Brexit.”
Yesterday’s figures revealed overall employment rose 122,000 to 31.95million in the three months to March. The number of over 50s in work hit an all-time high of 9.9 million.
Unemployment dropped 53,000 to 1.54 million with the jobless rate now just 4.6 per cent - the lowest on record since 1975.
Average pay rose by 2.4 per cent but in ‘real terms’ – adjusted for inflation – was 0.2 per cent lower than last year.
Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green said: “We are building a jobs market that works for everyone.
“We have created 2.9 million jobs since 2010 and have record levels of employment, proving that strong and stable economic management benefit millions of people.”