Almost half a million Eastern Europeans have applied to work in Britain over the past two years, according to Home Office figures released today that will put the Government under increased pressure to restrict immigration from Bulgaria and Romania.

Between May 2004 and the end of June this year, 447,000 people from Poland and seven other eastern European countries that acceded to the European Union in 2004 sought work in Britain. Just over 427,000 were approved to start work.

The influx is much greater than the Government's prediction of 15,000 immigrants per year and the actual number of workers from these countries is likely to be higher still since the figures do not include self-employed people like builders or plumbers, who do not have to join a workers' registration scheme.

Tony McNulty, the immigration minister, said estimates that included self-employed people would put the total number of from immigrants from the so-called "A8" nations nearer to 600,000.

Ministers' claims that the workers help to fill gaps in the labour market, especially in administration, business and management, hospitality and catering, and were seldom dependent on state benefits were borne out by the figures.

The immigrants applying for work included 95,868 factory workers, 15,840 waiters and waitresses, 24,000 kitchen and catering assistants, 6,500 bus, lorry and coach drivers, 12,700 care workers, 1,500 teachers, researchers and classroom assistants, 600 dental practitioners and 2,000 GPs, nurses and medical specialists.

Most are young — 82 per cent are aged between 18 and 34 — and 93 per cent had no dependants in the UK. Ninety-seven per cent are working full-time and of 5,943 initial applications for income support and job seekers' allowance, only 768 were allowed to carry on with their applications. One hundred and ten have been given council houses and 27,280 have claimed child benefit.

The Anglia region, a group of eight counties in eastern England, has overtaken London as the most popular destination for immigrants, with 64,980 setting up home in the area. The second most popular area is London, which has 58,580 immigrant workers from eastern Europe. Wales was the least popular choice.

The majority of applicants (264,560) are from Poland, followed by Lithuania (50,535) and Slovakia (44,300). The other Eastern European countries that joined the European Union at the same time, on May 1, 2004, are the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia and Solvenia. Malta and Cyrpus also joined at the same time.

The Government's failure to accurately predict the number of workers arriving from these countries has already provoked a stormy debate about whether there should be restrictions when Bulgaria and Romania join next year.

Alistair Darling, the Trade and Industry Secretary, insisted at the weekend that there would be no "open door" to migrant workers. His remarks were widely interpreted as a signal that the Government was preparing some form of control on workers coming from the two former Soviet bloc states.

Mr McNulty reiterated today that the Govenment had not decided whether to impose limits.

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