British-born workers are less likely to be employed in the UK than European Union immigrants, according to new figures from the Eurostat agency in Brussels.
The figures, according to the Telegraph, show that as a proportion of those employed, EU migrants are more likely to have jobs over British workers. The Telegraph notes that the new statistics may prompt “new concerns about the number of jobs going to the immigrant workforce.”
Eurostat found that 75.4 percent of British citizens aged between 20 and 64 were in work in 2013, compared with 79.2 percent of EU nationals living in the UK – a fact that has drawn the ire of representatives of the UK Independence Party (UKIP).
UKIP’s Economic Spokesperson Steve Woolfe is quoted as having said: “These stats show the unequal nature of our current migration policy which puts Europeans before Britons, and Europeans before the rest of the world.
“The million Britons currently unemployed must surely be asking why the UK is a member of the EU, when the employment rate of EU nationals in the UK is higher than it is for British nationals.”
Analysts suggested earlier this month that there is now evidence towards the notion that immigration is causing a decline in wages – contrary to the claims made by pro-immigration advocates on the Left, and on the libertarian Right.
The Telegraph quotes Sir Andrew Green, chairman of MigrationWatch UK: “These new figures confirm those from the Office for National Statistics which show that as the UK economy has recovered from the recession, the employment rate of British workers is increasing much more slowly than for EU workers.
“This raises the question of whether British workers are losing out to immigrant workers.
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