Number of European workers in UK falls

The number of EU nationals working in the UK has registered a fall for the first time in eight years, figures show.

There were an estimated 2.29 million overseas employees from the bloc in the first three months of this year.

This was 28,000 fewer than the equivalent period of 2017, and marks the first year-on-year decrease since January to March 2010. Labour market data released by the Office for National Statistics showed the fall was driven by a steep drop in the number of workers from the eight eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004.

In the latest period, there were an estimated 917,000 nationals of the so-called EUA8 countries – Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,slovakiaandslovenia – in work in the UK. This was down by 91,000 compared to January-march in 2017, the largest annual decrease since comparable records started in 1997.

Jonathan Portes, professor of Economics at King’s College London, said: “A combination of factors – a slowing economy here combined with recovery on the continent, but also the political and psychological impact of the Brexit vote – have made the UK a significantly less attractive place to live and work.”