Immigrants now account for more than four million of the 37 million working-age people in Britain, according to a report published yesterday on the economic impact of immigration.

The study highlights the huge economic benefits of immigration but admits that the numbers arriving to work may be hurting unskilled British workers. The effect could be even greater as the study did not take into account the effect of the tens of thousands of workers who have arrived from Eastern Europe since 2005.

The report said that there was a “very modest negative effect” on wage growth among the unskilled and low-skilled. But employers said that they employed immigrants because they could not recruit British-born workers. They preferred immigrants because they were more reliable, were willing to work hard and were motivated and keen compared with British workers.

“Native workers sometimes proved unreliable in certain sectors, especially agriculture and hotels and catering, which makes a business difficult to run. Some employers had tried recruiting applicants via Jobcentres but found that they sometimes turned up for interviews purely to get a form signed to enable them to receive job-seeker’s allowance,” the report said.

In the construction industry, skills shortages forced firms to recruit immigrants. “Polish workers were generally valued in London where they were seen as highly motivated, skilled workers who could fill a skills gap,” the report,The Economic and Fiscal Impact of Immigration, added. It said that in low-skilled jobs, it was a shortage of labour rather than skills that led to immigrants being hired. “This supports the notion that migrants are filling jobs that natives will not do.”

Employers praised the reliability of immigrants and their willingness to work hard. “This was sometimes defined in terms of migrant workers’ productivity and speed. But it was also related to their willingness to work long hours, beyond the normal working day. Several employers also mentioned that migrant workers actively sought overtime to earn extra money,” the report added.

A study by the Institute of Directors said that immigrant workers significantly outperformed the existing work-force in terms of productivity, education and skills, work ethic, reliability and the time they took off sick. They were crucial to the hotel and catering trade in London and the North East and some employers in agriculture said that their businesses could not survive without them, the report said.

However, a second report published by the Home Office highlighted the downside to immigration from Eastern European countries – Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which joined the EU in 2004.

Eight regions – Scotland, the South West, London, East Midlands, North West, Eastern England, the South and Yorkshire and Humberside – were asked about the impact of migration from these countries.

Five out of the eight mentioned difficulties over crime and disorder and education, six out of eight difficulties over health and seven out of eight mentioned difficulties over housing.

There had been reports of increases in low-level crime, such as driving offences, and some areas had noted an increase in translation costs in the criminal justice system.

Four areas had seen increased pressure on affordable private housing and rent levels, others complained that the immigrants lived in overcrowded, poor-quality accommodation. Many areas said that immigrants were being exploited by landlords and in the East Midlands and Scotland there was an emerging problem of homelessness.

Schools in the East Midlands and North West had seen more pupils arriving and leaving during the school year and in other areas some children from Eastern Europe were not going to school.

On health, the study found that 13 per cent of NHS staff in the North West were immigrants. In Sheffield and the East Midlands there had been an increase in GP caseloads and at accident and emergency departments in the East of England, north Lincolnshire and Southampton.

The report said that in the North West, South West and Scotland there had been community tensions after the arrival of foreigners – especially in areas that had previously never experienced migration.

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