BRITISH BUSINESS leaders have reacted furiously to charges made by former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan-Smith that British citizens are losing out unfairly in the race for jobs to foreign labour.
In a speech in Madrid yesterday to a centre-right policy group, the work and pensions secretary said it was now “too easy” for British firms “to look abroad for workers” and he feared young British “won’t get the chances they deserve”.
Statistics show the number of UK-born workers fell by 223,000 over the last 10 years, but the number of foreigners in work grew by 1.7 million, including one million non-EU citizens in middle- to high-income jobs, along with 700,000 eastern Europeans in lower-paid jobs.
Following on from Conservative Party election pledges, the Home Office imposed a cap in April on the number of non-EU workers in a bid to cut annual net migration from 242,000 per year to less than 100,000.
Immigration must be controlled if the UK is escape the creation of another generation of “dependency and hopelessness”, said Mr Duncan-Smith, but he added that business must play its part since government “cannot do it all”.
Despite its own record in office, when immigration soared, the Labour Party was quick to pounce on Mr Duncan-Smith’s speech. “Despite all their bold talk, four out of five new jobs have gone to newcomers to Britain over the last year,” said Liam Byrne MP.
However, the Confederation of Small Businesses said Mr Duncan-Smith had been “glib”, adding that British schools were failing to produce “work-ready” young people “with right skills that match the workplace”.
The problem has existed for decades, said the confederation’s Andrew Cave. “That’s not the fault of employers and it’s not the fault of young people. It is very much the fault of the education system.”
Education and business must be brought back together again, he said.
“There is another problem here that is particularly with trades and skills. People are not being equipped with that at university because the government has channelled everybody towards going to university.”
So far, it is not clear if the speech by Mr Duncan-Smith – one of the more cerebral members of the Conservative/Liberal Democrats alliance – reflected his personal views or whether it is part of tougher “anti-EU” rhetoric from senior Conservatives.
Conservative MPs are gravely concerned the UK will be forced into a multibillion bailout of the Greeks – despite numerous denials by prime minister David Cameron, while even some of his closest advisers are now privately advocating a much tougher stand against Brussels.
However David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said firms had no choice but to hire foreign workers because young British candidates were not well enough qualified.
“They expect young people to come forward to them who are able to read, write and communicate and have a good work ethic and too often that’s not the case and there’s a stream of able east European migrants who are able to fill those jobs,” Mr Frost said.
