The number of Romanian and Bulgarians in the UK has risen 15% over the last year, as unemployment numbers continue to fall.
According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), 172,000 people from Romania and Bulgaria arrived in the UK in the last three months of 2014, while the number of people out of work in the UK fell by 97,000 over the same period.
The total number of EU workers in the UK rose by 200,000 or 10.5% to almost 1.9 million, but despite this the percentage of people employed rose to 73.2%, the highest since 2004.
Pay was also up over the same period, with average earnings including bonuses rising 2.1% or 1.7% excluding bonuses when compared to 2013. Total pay likewise was up 2.4% in December compared to 12 months prior.
Meanwhile, CPI inflation fell from was 0.5% in December to 0.3% in January, the lowest level since records began in 1989.
Despite the figures showing that EU immigration does not cause unemployment or a fall in pay, UKIP continues to push the line that eastern European immigration should be feared.
UKIP Migration spokesman Steven Woolfe MEP said:
“I am sure that the residents of the UK will be as alarmed by these ridiculously high numbers of people coming into Britain, as I am. UKIP warned that opening the door to Romania and Bulgaria on January 1st would lead to more economic refugees into the country. The politically correct establishment condemned us at the time – but we were right.
“Until our political elites state categorically that EU membership is a major cause of the UK’s wage lowering, uncontrolled, mass migration and broken, unsecured borders they will continue to fail the British people. And our national public infrastructure, services and finances will continue to take the strain of hundreds of thousands of new EU residents in Britain each year.”
