In the period January-March 2014, 140,000 people born in Romania and Bulgaria were working in the UK. This is an increase from 112,000 in the first quarter of 2013, but a fall from 144,000 in the period October-December 2013. Meanwhile, the rate of employment for these workers has risen from 71.1 percent in Q1 2013 to 76.2 percent in Q1 2014. The number of workers born in the ‘A8’ countries from Eastern Europe has also risen substantially, from 687,000 in January-March 2013 to 802,000 in the same period in 2014.

Tim Finch, Associate Director of Migration at IPPR, said: “These figures suggest the panic whipped up over an influx of Romanian and Bulgarian workers after transitional controls were lifted on January 1^st was alarmist. There’s been a steady number of people from those countries coming to work in the UK since they joined the EU in 2007, but numbers have actually dropped since the turn of the year. “Looking wider, migration from other Eastern European countries into the UK has continued to increase. Government clampdowns on access to welfare seem to have had no impact, but that’s because Poles and others generally do not come to claim benefits, but to work, as their impressive levels of employment, at 81 percent well above the average, show.”