IMMIGRATION 'NOT LINKED TO JOBLESS'

Immigration has little or no impact on the number of unemployed in the UK, a report said today.

The number of immigrants coming to the UK is not linked with the number of people claiming jobless benefits, the study by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr) showed.

But it conceded that it is still not known whether an increase in the number of migrants coming to the UK leads to a fall in the number of low-skilled jobs for British workers which is masked by more jobs for highly skilled Britons.

The report comes after the campaign group Migration Watch UK said it would be a "remarkable coincidence" if there was no link between a 600,000 rise since May 2004 in the number of Eastern European migrants working in the UK and a 450,000 rise in youth unemployment in the same period.

Migrants from the so-called A8 countries which joined the EU almost eight years ago - Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - "have tended to be disproportionately young, well-educated, prepared to work for low wages and imbued with a strong work ethic", the campaigners said.

But today's report said: "We find no association between migrant inflows and claiming unemployment.

"The results show a very small negative and generally insignificant correlation between the migrant inflow rate and the change in the claimant count rate.

"A two percentage point increase in the migrant inflow rate, akin in magnitude to the large and sudden inflow of A8 migrants in the years 2004-2006, would, according to these estimates, be associated with a fall in the claimant count rate in the order of only 0.02 percentage points.

"For all practical purposes, these results suggest that migration has essentially no impact on claimant count unemployment."

There were also no signs of a more adverse impact of immigration during the recent recession, the report said.

But it added: "We cannot exclude that migrant inflows may be having positive effects on the employment of highly skilled native labour (because of complementarities) and negative effects on low-skilled native workers (because of substitutability) which net out in the aggregate."

The study looked at the number of migrants who were given National Insurance numbers between 2002/3 and 2010/11, and compared these with the number of people claiming unemployment benefits.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "We have already made sweeping changes to tackle the uncontrolled immigration of the past.

"We have limited non-EU workers coming to the UK, with latest figures showing a year on year fall in work visas issued.

"We will shortly announce reforms of the family migration and settlement routes."

She went on: "We are also ensuring graduates and the workforce get the opportunities and skills they need so that they can find work."