Revealed: The areas of Britain where there are more migrants chasing jobs than locals

The true extent of the huge influx of foreign workers into Britain is revealed in an investigation by the Daily Mail.

In some parts of the UK there are more migrants searching for jobs than native Britons - even at this time of soaring unemployment.

Nearly three quarters of a million National Insurance Numbers (NINOs), a prerequisite for getting employment, were handed out to foreign nationals last year.



The figure exposes as a sham the New Labour pledge of 'British jobs for British workers'.

While a NINO can be used to access social benefits, most newcomers from abroad are not eligible for these payouts and use the number only to seek work. Therefore, it gives a highly accurate estimate of foreigners entering the job market.

The number of migrants receiving NINOs rose by more than a fifth in some areas in 2008.

Of the 733,000 given out, 30 per cent went to Poles, 10 per cent to arrivals from the Indian sub-continent, and 5 per cent to Romanians and Lithuanians.

The jobs crisis is intensifying as more migrants arrive to find work and are prepared to accept lower wages than locals.

They are often more enthusiastic in their search for employment, travelling the country searching for poorly paid jobs, such as fruit picking or night factory work, that Britons are less willing to do.

However, in many areas migrants and British nationals are in direct competition for exactly the same jobs.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: 'The fact that so many British people are allowed to choose welfare rather than hard work meant that when our borders opened up, there were lots of vacancies for foreign labour.

'Now times are tougher, those jobs are disappearing and the British workers who do want jobs have been left competing with overwhelming numbers of migrants.

'If we are going to get more British people working then we need firm border controls and tougher welfare rules so no one can just sit back and be featherbedded on benefits and not bother to look for a job.'

In London, 272,000 overseas nationals received NINOs in the year up to December 2008. Eight months on and the figure is estimated to have topped 350,000. The newcomers are competing for work against almost exactly the same number - 359,000 - of job-seeking Londoners.

In Westminster 12,070 foreigners have been given NINOs, twice as many as the number of locals searching for work. It is a similar story in Haringey, Brent, Tower Hamlets and Ealing.

The picture is repeated in other parts of Britain. In Edinburgh, Oxford and Slough, for instance, far more foreigners are chasing work than Britons.

In more provincial areas, such as the agriculture hotspot of Peterborough, there are almost equal numbers of foreigners and locals in the jobs race.

Even in the resort of Bournemouth, where thousands of jobs are available during the summer tourist season, migrants have received 4,200 NINOs while nearly 4,000 local people want employment.

The total number of UK unemployed rose 250,000 in the three months to June to the highest level for a decade or more. The jump to 2.5million comes as businesses continue to close or cut their staff in the face of the deep recession.

Nearly 1.6million are job-seekers while the remainder are deemed to be 'economically inactive'.

Meanwhile, seven out of ten jobs created under New Labour have been taken by foreign workers, the highest proportion in any of the major economies analysed recently by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Companies are continuing to hire more migrants even though the British jobless toll rises by almost 3,000 a day, according to a survey by the accountants KPMG and the Chartered Institute of Personnel.

The Mail's map is based on information from each local authority based on two sets of official figures.

The first is the total in each area of National Insurance Numbers given to adult overseas nationals entering the UK during 2008. seven out of ten jobs created under New Labour have been taken by foreign workers...

The second set of figures is the claimant count for each local authority area in July, compiled from Government statistics released last week.

A claimant is a person on job-seekers' allowance who is actively trying to find employment. Newly arrived foreigners cannot get this payout.

This, therefore, gives a fair picture of the numbers of local people in each area wanting to work.

Yesterday Sir Andrew Green, of Migrationwatch UK, said the consequences were severe for British workers.

'It seems that during this recession, employers are more willing to hire and keep on migrants because they are perceived to be cheaper and to work harder. Meanwhile, the local people are let go first,' he said.

'Firms get foreigners to work for buttons'

The Mail talked to people in Peterborough, London and Bournemouth about the difficult jobs market.

In Peterborough, cafe baker Marcin Kubiak, 26, who left Poland six months ago, said: 'I was sure I would get a job here because I was prepared to do anything. There are opportunities but you have to search for them.'

Yet Matthew Kirton, 24, says he can't find a job in the same city. 'I have applied for ten in the last fortnight, including one at the huge Tesco distribution warehouse which mainly employs Polish-people, but have not had a reply. Employers get immigrants to work for buttons.'

In London, Ciobanu Mihai, 27, arrived from Romania in 2008. He earns £300 a week on a Westminster building site and says: 'I think we foreigners work harder than the British.'

But 18-year-old waitress Jade Boam, who was born in Westminster, says she has tried everything to get a full-time job.

'The migrant workers should be stopped from coming here. In the cafes where I work nobody can believe there is an English girl serving. Normally this kind of job goes to foreigners because they are cheaper.'

In Bournemouth, spray painter James Wills, 22, has been jobless since October. 'I'd be happy to work hard in a warehouse or a building site, anything really.

'I feel if there were fewer foreign workers I would have got a job by now.

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