Britain still Europe’s biggest magnet for migrant workers

Britain is still the biggest magnet for migrants across Europe, despite other nations opening their borders, official figures show.

Almost one in four of all international migrants who found work were employed in the UK, nearly double the number who went to Germany.

The number of EU workers arriving increased despite the fact that major economies on the continent welcomed workers from Eastern Europe for the first time, figures from the European Commission’s statistics arm Eurostat show, proving that Britain continues to be the preferred destination.

The statistics were released just days after Romanian think-tank Ires predicted that more than 700,000 people would flood to Britain when the restrictions are lifted as a quarter of their you workers aged between 18 and 35 will seek work here, the Daily Mail reported.

Since Poland and seven other Eastern European countries joined the EU more than a million citizens have come to work in Britain.

In 2012 there were more than 216,000 EU citizens working in the country who has arrived in the previous two years, an increase of over 10 per cent on 2010 levels, the national labour force statistics show.

The numbers of EU workers moving into Germany – which opened its doors to Eastern European member states in May 2011 – doubled to 166,500 over the two years prior to 2012, going up from 80,500 recorded in a similar count in 2010.

Sir Andrew Green of the Migrationwatch think tank said that the figures showed that twice as many migrant workers were coming to Britain compared to Germany despite the lower growth in our economy.

“This is a further pointer towards a significant inflow of Romanian and Bulgarian workers into Britain next year,” he added.

Countries such as Spain and Ireland, who were worst hit by the Eurozone crisis, experienced a drop in the number of immigrant workers.

British workers are more likely than migrants workers to find employment, the Eurostat figures also showed.

(The Telegraph)