Foreigners bag large chunk of British jobs

London, Dec 11: Over the last decade, about 81 per cent of British jobs have been assigned to foreign workers, claims an analysis of official figures.

In a study conducted by the Statistics Commission it was found 1.4 million of the 1.7 million jobs created since 1997 had been filled by those born overseas.

In an earlier official estimate, it was said that only 54 per cent of the jobs had been bagged by the foreign workers as it had excluded the jobs taken by people over pensionable age.

The new higher estimation not only includes the number of foreign workers who have taken these jobs but also an additional 300,000 workers who were born abroad but have British citizenship.

''Of the 2.1 million increase in employment since 1997, about one million were UK nationals and 1.1 million foreign nationals,'' a spokesman of the Department of Work and Pensions was yesterday quoted by the Telegraph as saying.

Defending the use of the lowest figure, he said, ''The best estimates for the number of jobs that have gone to foreign nationals since 1997 still stand and have been confirmed by this report.'' UNI