This was headline news in Holland this morning.
A new rapport that was published on Tuesday.
British economy benefits from migrants, says study
London - Migrants contribute significantly to Britain's economic growth, media reports said Wednesday as a government forum was meeting to discuss whether restrictions on migration from EU- newcomers Romania and Bulgaria should be lifted. Besides being often more skilled, more reliable and harder working than British-born workers, migrants contribute some 6 billion pounds (12 billion dollars) a year to the country's economic growth, according to a report for the government's Migration Impact Forum published on Tuesday.
The arrival of hundreds of thousands of workers - many of them Polish - after the 2004 "Big Bang" EU expansion also had "no discernible" impact on Britain's unemployment rate, said the study, which was carried out jointly by the Treasury, Home Office and Work and Pensions Department.
The proportion of foreign migrants in the workforce has risen from 7.4 per cent in 1997 to 12.5 per cent in 2006, with immigrants now accounting for more than 4 million of the 37-million-strong working- age population of Britain.
"In the long run, our country and Exchequer is better off with immigration rather than without it," Immigration Minister Liam Byrne was quoted as saying in The Times daily.
Less than 6 per cent of employers said they hired migrants for lower wage cost, with many migrants even earning more than British workers, according to the report.
However, it was mainly migrants from western economies who earned more than the British, while workers from Eastern Europe were earning much less.
Employers said they often preferred immigrants because they were more reliable, the report said.
"Native workers sometimes proved unreliable in certain sectors, especially agriculture and hotels and catering, which makes a business difficult to run," according to the report.
The report also added that "in the long run, it is likely that the net fiscal contribution of an immigrant will be greater than that of a non-immigrant."
However, the study also said, migration was putting a strain on housing and public services, such as health and transport, while five out of eight regions reported difficulties on crime and education.
Especially demand for English courses had been growing, the report said.
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