THEY'VE STOLEN ALL OUR JOBS - 16th Dec 2008 2:29am
IMMIGRANTS have snapped up almost every new job created in Britain since 2001.
Research says 1.3million foreigners have flooded into the UK over the last seven years to take up employment.
But while Labour claimed to be behind a jobs boom, hardly any of the new posts have gone to British workers.
Instead the vast majority went to immigrants, including 500,000 since 2004 taken by eastern Europeans.
A report by pressure group Migrationwatch says little effort has been made to help jobless Brits find work. Instead, they have languished on the dole while foreigners – mainly Poles, Africans and Indians – have nabbed their jobs.
Migrationwatch says its dossier makes a mockery of Gordon Brown’s “British jobs for British workers” pledge.
Eastern Europeans have eased their way into work because many are willing to accept the minimum wage of £5.73
The report said that the number of jobless Brits began to creep up after the UK opened its doors to the EU in 2004.
But it also showed the number of east Europeans flocking to Britain had now stabilised and arrivals have dropped to about 13,000 a month.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show overall UK employment went up 320,000 from 29.17m in 2006
to 29.49m. But during that period the number of Britons in work actually fell by 149,000.
migrationwatch chairman Sir Andrew Green said: “From an immigration point of view this means that migration from eastern Europe is moving into balance as we have been predicting.
“But from the point of view of Brit-born workers, the damage to their prospects has already been done at a time when jobs of almost all kinds are at a premium. This must have been staring the Government in the face for a long time, yet even last month they described the east European migrants as ‘helping to fill gaps in the labour market’.
“Now the cat is out of the bag they cannot possibly lift such restrictions existing on Romanian and Bulgarian workers.”
But Derek Simpson, leader of Unite, said: “The construction industry is one of the worst-hit sectors.
“We can’t allow those hungry for work to be turned away when there is work available.
Research says 1.3million foreigners have flooded into the UK over the last seven years to take up employment.
But while Labour claimed to be behind a jobs boom, hardly any of the new posts have gone to British workers.
Instead the vast majority went to immigrants, including 500,000 since 2004 taken by eastern Europeans.
A report by pressure group Migrationwatch says little effort has been made to help jobless Brits find work. Instead, they have languished on the dole while foreigners – mainly Poles, Africans and Indians – have nabbed their jobs.
Migrationwatch says its dossier makes a mockery of Gordon Brown’s “British jobs for British workers” pledge.
Eastern Europeans have eased their way into work because many are willing to accept the minimum wage of £5.73
The report said that the number of jobless Brits began to creep up after the UK opened its doors to the EU in 2004.
But it also showed the number of east Europeans flocking to Britain had now stabilised and arrivals have dropped to about 13,000 a month.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show overall UK employment went up 320,000 from 29.17m in 2006
to 29.49m. But during that period the number of Britons in work actually fell by 149,000.
migrationwatch chairman Sir Andrew Green said: “From an immigration point of view this means that migration from eastern Europe is moving into balance as we have been predicting.
“But from the point of view of Brit-born workers, the damage to their prospects has already been done at a time when jobs of almost all kinds are at a premium. This must have been staring the Government in the face for a long time, yet even last month they described the east European migrants as ‘helping to fill gaps in the labour market’.
“Now the cat is out of the bag they cannot possibly lift such restrictions existing on Romanian and Bulgarian workers.”
But Derek Simpson, leader of Unite, said: “The construction industry is one of the worst-hit sectors.
“We can’t allow those hungry for work to be turned away when there is work available.