The number of foreign workers has increased by 114,000 in the last year – while people born in Britain continued to lose their jobs.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show workers born overseas were the beneficiaries of the early stages of the economic recovery.
There are now 3.85million workers who were born abroad. At the same time, the UK-born workforce fell by 15,000, to 25.08million.
The figures cover the last days of the Labour Government – which promised to deliver ‘British jobs for British workers’.
The increase in foreign workers is largely due to surges in the number from the former Eastern Bloc countries and India.
Experts had claimed the number of arrivals from Poland and the other Eastern European nations that joined the EU in May 2004 – giving them free access to the UK labour market – was in sharp decline. But between June 2009 and June 2010, the Eastern European workforce increased by 38,000 or 7.2 per cent.
