Four in five new U.K. payroll jobs went to non-Britons, report finds
- Foreign nationals bagged 4 out of 5 new UK payroll jobs since 2014, totaling a net 2.9M positions for outsiders while Brits got just 734K.
- The 'Boriswave' post-2020 immigration surge saw non-EU payrolls explode by 2.1M, while British payroll jobs *fell* by 186,000 and out-of-work benefits claims jumped 2.3M.
- The Centre for Social Justice calls it 'human quantitative easing' — importing workers to pump up GDP while locals slide into welfare dependency.
- Benefit spending is ballooning to £136.1B by 2026-27, costing each income taxpayer an extra £1,200 annually; nearly 1 in 6 working-age adults now claim out-of-work aid.
- Reform UK's Richard Tice is licking his chops, calling the stats a 'damning indictment' and vowing to slam the border shut.
Brief Summary
A new report from the Centre for Social Justice reveals that the UK's jobs market and welfare state are having a torrid love affair with foreign labor, leaving British workers to hold the coats. Of the 3.7 million net new payroll jobs added between 2014 and 2025, a whopping 2.9 million went to foreign nationals, with the non-EU cohort alone snagging 2.5 million. Meanwhile, British nationals watched their job numbers crater in nine out of twelve UK regions, particularly in Scotland, as the think tank points the finger at a deliberate policy of 'imported labor' to keep wage inflation at bay. The report claims this 'Boriswave' of post-pandemic immigration was a sneaky Treasury move to suppress wages, citing Boris Johnson's own admission that 'there had to be a fix'—a fix that apparently involved opening the floodgates. With 6.7 million working-age adults now parked on out-of-work benefits and spending on them £49.6 billion higher in real terms since 2019, the Tories and Labour are accused of playing a cynical numbers game, prioritizing GDP growth over getting Brits back to work.
Why This Matters
This report is a live grenade lobbed into Britain's already heated debate on immigration and the economy. For the average reader, it's not just an abstract stat—it means your tax bill is going up to fund a ballooning welfare state while the employment market increasingly bypasses domestic workers for cheaper or more available foreign labor. If the Centre for Social Justice's analysis holds water, the policy of mass immigration has effectively created a two-track society: one where newcomers fill jobs for statistical growth, and another where millions of locals are left on the dole, creating a starkly divided labor market. While the government spins this as a skills-based success, the report suggests the system is fundamentally broken—unless you happen to be in the business of importing workers, in which case it's absolutely thriving.