Foreign workers ‘vital to economy’
The government has been warned foreign workers will remain vital after Brexit as it was revealed EU migrants account for as many as one in 10 employees in key sectors.
More than two million workers from the European bloc work in industries including manufacturing, hospitality, healthcare and finance.
THE GOVERNMENT has been warned foreign workers will remain vital to the UK’s economic future after Brexit as new figures revealed EU migrants account for as many as one in 10 employees in key sectors.
More than two million workers from the European bloc are employed in industries including manufacturing, hospitality, healthcare and financial services.
The findings lay bare the challenge of introducing curbs on free movement rules while ensuring industries that are particularly reliant on overseas workers are not severely damaged as the Government enters into Brexit negotiations.
Ufi Ibrahim, the chief executive of the British Hospitality Association, said: “We want to avoid there being any cliff-edge, but the Government must be aware that in the medium to long-term we will still need considerable numbers of EU workers, who have contributed so much to our industry and the UK economy in general.”
Alp Mehmet, the vice-chairman of Migration Watch UK, admitted the report “confirms that some sectors of the economy employ large numbers of EU migrants”, but stressed business must now focus on recruiting and training from the domestic workforce and “wean itself off the cheaper east European option”.
A detailed report published yesterday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that last year an estimated 3.4m workers, or 11 per cent of the UK labour market, were foreign nationals.
This number was made up of about 2.2m EU nationals –the equivalent of seven per cent – and 1.2m non-EU nationals, or four per cent.
The report said the highest number of migrant workers, 669,000, are employed in elementary occupations, such as selling goods or cleaning, including 510,000 EU nationals.
This is followed by professional occupations, with an estimated 658,000 non-UK nationals, including 352,000 from the EU.
Statistics also indicate that Romanians and Bulgarians, as well as citizens from the so-called EU8 nations – from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia – work more hours than UK nationals.
Half of the EU8 nationals and nearly two-thirds of Romanians and Bulgarians work more than 40 hours per week, compared with only a third of UK employees.
Compared with the national average earnings of £11.30 per hour, workers from a group of 14 EU countries including Germany, Italy and France, earned more (£12.59), whereas EU8 nationals and Romanians and Bulgarians had the lowest pay at £8.33.
Anna Bodey, of the ONS, said this partly reflected the numbers in lower-skilled jobs, adding: “Many EU migrants are also more likely to be over-educated for the jobs they are in.”
The Department for Work and Pensions maintained there are more British people in “work than ever before” and the unemployment rate has not been lower since the mid-1970s.
The reliance on migrant workers has been a long-running factor for the UK’s economy.
The Yorkshire Post revealed in 2007 that the region itself was so reliant on tens of thousands of eastern European workers that its economy would be plunged into crisis without them.
A cheap and readily available workforce had become so vital to scores of the region’s companies that they could be forced out of business without them, according to a report by leading academics and Government advisers.
Many EU migrants are also more likely to be over-educated... Anna Bodey of the Office for National Statistics