Graphic: imported labour

The UK’s official statistician weighed into the debate about foreign workers yesterday by highlighting the growing numbers of immigrants getting jobs while the British workforce declines.

On the day that figures showed the number of people unemployed at a 12-year high, the Office for National Statistics chose to reveal that the number of foreign workers increased by 175,000 to 2.4 million last year while the number of British workers fell by 234,000 to 27 million.

Karen Dunnell, the National Statistician, sought to focus public attention on the contrasting fortunes of foreign and British workers as the country slipped into recession. Her intervention came as construction workers took part in wildcat strikes at power stations in Nottinghamshire and Kent, angry about jobs going to foreigners.

The ONS, which is charged with collecting data and providing impartial analysis, said that it made the unprecedented release because of the “topicality of the issue”.

Whitehall sources told The Times that ministers were “fizzing” with anger, accusing the ONS of a political act designed to embarrass Gordon Brown over his “British jobs for British workers” soundbite.

MPs warned that the statistics were open to misinterpretation and risked inflaming tensions in many British workplaces.

In January, 73,800 people signed on for jobless benefits, bringing the claimant total to 1.23 million. The number of people out of work reached 1.97 million between October and December, the highest level since August 1997. Jobs were also lost at a record rate. Yesterday the cash-and-carry chain Makro said that 400 workers faced redundancy. The ONS has for years collected details on the origin of those working in Britain. The figures are usually included in the pages of data making up the monthly jobless totals, which yesterday ran to 24 tables. They are also included in quarterly population and migration figures, due out at the end of this month.

Yesterday was the first time that the ONS had highlighted the employment fortunes of foreigners in a separate press release, and the first time it had issued more than one release on unemployment. MPs said that the release, headed “UK-born and non-UK-born employment”, was misleading because many of those born outside the country had since become UK citizens.

The row is the latest dispute between the ONS and the Government over the release of official data. The ONS won independence from the Government last year after claims that ministers were manipulating figures for political advantage.

The figures showed that since the beginning of 1997, the year Labour came to power, the number of foreign-born workers has almost doubled. Over the same period, the number of British-born workers has risen by just 5 per cent to 25.58 million.

However, ministers believe that the figures are meaningless because they fail to distinguish between temporary workers, Europeans and those on indefinite leave to remain.

A senior government source said: “The fact that they highlighted this in this way, in a press release, looks like they are trying to embarrass the Government over the slogan ‘British Jobs for British workers’.”

Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said that he would raise concerns about the release of the figures with the Prime Minister today. “The danger is that such information could be misconstrued or misused by those who do not support the view that Britain should be a diverse and multicultural society,” he said.

Unions warned that the presentation of the figures could be used to stoke resentment amid rising unemployment. They also warned that the classifications were misleading.

Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister, said that there was likely to be a “time lag” in non-UK workers losing their jobs during a downturn. “If you’ve come in to work, you’re on a temporary visa; you’re not going to be made redundant during that period but your contract for the job isn’t necessarily going to be renewed,” he said.

Gordon Brown told the Commons: “Despite all the figures that are bandied about today and on other days, the percentage of non-UK nationals employed in the United Kingdom is 8 per cent and it is lower than many other countries that people compare us with.”

The ONS told The Times that Ms Dunnell was abroad and unable to comment. It said that she had taken the decision to release the figures separately alongside the unemployment data for the first time. “There was absolutely no outside influence on this decision to publish this data yesterday,” a spokesman said. “The aim is to help public information and avoid potential confusion if alternative statistics were published.”

In other countries

Germany The Federal Agency for Employment tracks and publishes the number of foreign nationals working in the country. Foreign nationals account for about 15 per cent of the total number of unemployed, or 522,405. The unemployment rate in Germany is about 8.3 per cent

Italy The statistical office has published annual figures on foreign workers since 2006, broken down by nationality, age, gender, region of employment and qualifications. The latest report says there are 3.5 million registered foreigners in Italy, of whom 1.5 million are in regular employment, which amounts to 6.4 per cent of the total Italian workforce. Half of all foreigners employed in Italy are from Albania, Romania, Ukraine, Morocco and the Philippines

France The state statistics agency estimates that there are 3.8 million employed workers of foreign origin in France, representing 8.5 per cent of the total workforce of 25.4 million. The annual inward flow of workers, whether from EU states or beyond, is not published

United States The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the foreign-born share of the US workforce grew in 2007, to 24 million, or 15.7 per cent. This was up from 15.3 per cent in 2006

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