Migrants ‘getting more jobs than men born in UK’

Despite a drop in overall employment during the downturn, male migrants in the UK have had higher levels of employment than “native-born men” from 2007 onwards, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said.

The situation has improved for migrants in the UK as foreign-born men have reversed a pre-crisis shortfall in employment and are now doing better than men who were born in the country.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of campaign group Migration Watch UK, said: “It is time for a thorough assessment of the impact of immigration on the employment of British workers that this report only touches on.

“What is clear is that British-born workers have hardly benefited at all from the expansion of employment in the last ten years or so.”

The findings feature in the Paris-based think-tank’s 420-page International Migration Outlook report for 2013, which also reveals that in 2011, total permanent immigration rose in the 34 OECD countries from 2010.

Looking at whether the financial crisis reversed progress made by migrants over the past decade, the report said: “Despite a decline in their employment rates during the crisis, male migrants in the United Kingdom had higher levels of employment than native-born men from 2007 onwards.”

The report also found that the UK and Germany are the biggest recipients of migrants fleeing countries most affected by the financial crisis, particularly in southern Europe, with numbers almost doubling in recent years.

It added that outflows of nationals from these countries are speeding up, with movements having risen by 45 per cent from 2009 to 2011 and early data suggests this increase is continuing.

But the report concluded that the take-up of social benefits by immigrants relative to native-born households in the UK is lower than the average seen in all OECD countries, across all types of benefits.