The British economy appears to no longer prioritise British workers, with a think tank finding that four in five jobs created over the past decade have been given to foreigners, as the number of Britons shifted onto the welfare rolls soared.
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The British economy appears to no longer prioritise British workers, with a think tank finding that four in five jobs created over the past decade have been given to foreigners, as the number of Britons shifted onto the welfare rolls soared.
The State of Dependency report from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has found that since 2014, only 734,000 jobs were given to British citizens, compared to nearly three million being taken by immigrants. The think tank said that around 408,000 of such jobs were given to EU nationals, while the overwhelming majority, 2.5 million, were handed out to migrants from outside of Europe.
The report found that most of the shifting of employment to foreigners began during the Chinese coronavirus crisis, which also coincided with the United Kingdom officially leaving the European Union, and then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson introducing immigration liberalisations that would pave the way for record levels of immigration into the country, despite having promised the public that his so-called Conservative government would do the precise opposite.
Defending what has come to be colloquially referred to as the ‘Boriswave’ of immigration, Mr Johnson claimed that he was urged by the Treasury to engage in “human quantitative easing”, simply put, flooding the market with migrant labour and thereby slashing wages in the hopes of reducing inflation.
However, in addition to reducing the purchasing power of working Britons, the move also appears to have correlated with many being pushed into state dependency.
According to the CSJ, while the number of migrant workers in Britain rose by 2.1 million since 2020, the number of people in the country receiving out-of-work welfare benefits rose by 2.3 million during the same time period, costing the taxpayer an additional £21 billion ($28bn) in real terms. The report lamented that “employers have gained unprecedented access to overseas labour while taxpayers have absorbed the growing cost of domestic worklessness.”
In total, the report found that some 6.7 million people in Britain are now receiving at least one such benefit, resulting in a bill of £136 billion ($180bn) this year, an increase of £50 billion ($66bn) in real terms since 2019-20, or £1,200 ($1,590)per taxpayer.
Additionally, the think tank claimed that “high immigration has also added substantially to the welfare bill,” with the report finding that visas issued to “dependent” migrants rose by around 400 per cent between 2019 and 2024.
Although mass migration was often pitched to the public as a solution to prop up the welfare state to support ageing indigenous populations, the report found that around £14.3 billion ($19bn) in taxpayer money is currently being handed out to working-age migrants living in Britain, and it is expected to rise to £16.3 billion ($22bn) by 2030.
“This represents a major change in scope to a welfare state founded on the principle of contribution and reciprocity. Migration, welfare and taxation emerge as interconnected parts of the same broken economic model. For too long, policy has prioritised adding migrants to the economy rather than unlocking the potential of even a fraction of the 6.7 million people in the hidden unemployment crisis,” the report said.
Responding to the findings, Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice told the Daily Mail: “This report is a damning indictment of Labour and Conservative governments who have chosen an open-borders, low-wage economic model that writes off millions of our own people.
“Reform UK will end the welfare trap, halt mass immigration and get British workers back into jobs.”
Reform has said that if elected, it will seek to reduce annual welfare spending by £50 billion ($66bn) a year, in large part by prohibiting foreign nationals from receiving any welfare benefits, which the party has estimated would alone save the taxpayer £21 billion ($28.5bn) a year by 2029, or £700 ($950) per household.
The party has also vowed to scrap Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) residence status, which allows migrants who have lived in Britain for five years to start receiving benefits. Reform has warned that if the Boriswave migrants are granted ILR, they could cost the country upwards of £622.5 billion by the end of their lives.
