Data gathered by a think tank over the past decade show that overseas-born workers accounted for approximately four out of every five net new jobs added to the British labour market. Research by the Centre for Social Justice indicates that, of the 3.7 million payroll positions created between 2014 and the period examined, approximately 734,000 were taken up by British nationals.
Of the roughly 2.9 million positions filled by workers from abroad, approximately 2.5 million went to workers arriving from beyond EU borders, with a further 408,000 posts taken up by nationals from within the bloc. The Centre for Social Justice, a think tank, noted in its assessment that employers had drawn on a notably broad pool of workers from abroad.
According to the think tank, taxpayer money is currently financing a welfare framework that, by its assessment, has left a considerable portion of the British workforce without adequate support or clear pathways toward employment. Figures from the Office for National Statistics put the number of under-25s outside work, education, and any form of training at 981,000.
Data published by the Centre for Social Justice points to a post-pandemic recruitment period during which the number of workers arriving from abroad climbed by 2.1 million, beginning in 2020. That pattern was echoed by a nationwide count showing 2.3 million additional people had moved onto out-of-work benefit payments.
About 6.7 million people across England, Scotland, and Wales draw on at least one form of out-of-work benefit. Spending on working-age claimants is projected to reach £136 billion against the public accounts in the current financial year, a figure that has grown by £50 billion in real terms compared with 2019 levels.
Those findings sit within a welfare-system review overseen by Sir Iain Duncan Smith — a figure who held both the Conservative Party leadership and the work and pensions secretaryship before taking up a directorship at the CSJ. According to Duncan Smith, the report's conclusions pointed to an economic picture whose reach stretched well past the welfare system itself.
He argued that welfare spending had long served as a substitute for genuine economic renewal in struggling parts of the country, with administrations across different eras choosing to cushion the effects of decline rather than address its underlying causes. On multiple occasions, those in government have turned to immigration policy as a convenient response rather than addressing the structural disadvantages facing communities that have long felt overlooked, he said.
Drawing on HMRC pay-as-you-earn records, the CSJ's analysis found that the workforce covered by that tax system expanded from 28.3 million employees in July 2014 to 32 million by December 2025. The think tank argued that welfare policy, immigration, and regional economic development need to be addressed together rather than in isolation.
Of that overall growth, nationals holding British citizenship accounted for roughly one in five. Job numbers in Scotland fell by 53,000, while the West Midlands recorded a separate decline of 32,000 positions across its labour market.
Over the same period, the capital took in 465,200 workers from outside the EU, while the South East region recorded an intake of a further 284,500. Four sectors drove the bulk of that non-EU payroll growth: health and social work contributed the largest share at 29 per cent, with administrative and support services behind it at 16 per cent, accommodation and food at 12 per cent, and wholesale and retail rounding out the leading group at 10 per cent.
The 250-page State of Dependency report, compiled over the course of a year, stated that the period following the Covid-19 pandemic represented the most pronounced instance of what it termed "human quantitative easing," alleging that the administration at the time accelerated net migration with the stated intention of putting downward pressure on wages as a means of controlling inflation.
Payroll data covering the period from 2020 onwards showed that workers holding British nationality had left employer rolls across nine of the country's 12 regions, while those from outside the European Union had joined payrolls in every region without exception. The same analysis put the cost of welfare payments directed to foreign nationals at up to £16 billion annually.
The Home Secretary set out a proposal to extend the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain — the status that allows overseas nationals to settle permanently in the UK, with full rights to work, study, and access benefits — from its current length to twice that duration, framing the change as a measure to bring down the overall numbers.
