Record number of workless migrants in Britain
The number of workless migrants in Britain has reached 1.689m, costing the Treasury at least £8.5bn a year.
Record number of migrants in the UK are not working
The Centre for Migration Control can reveal that a record number of working age migrants (16-64) are “workless”, either due to economic inactivity or unemployment.
Office for National Statistics data shows that in Q2 of 2024 there were 1.689m non-UK nationals either economically inactive or unemployed.
This surpasses the previous record figures of 1.676m in the first quarter of 2024, and the 1.628m that was recorded in Q1 2012.
The pro-rata cost such a huge level of migrant worklessness imposes on the Treasury is around £8.5bn.
The data:
On 13 August 2024 the ONS released the latest its quarterly data on “Employment, unemployment and economic inactivity by nationality and country of birth”.
Analysis shows that around 1.689m migrants aged 16-64 are either economically inactive or unemployed which together can be defined as “workless”
This figure is broken down into the 441,000 migrants who are unemployed and 1.247m who are economically inactive.
There are a further 578,000 migrants who are economically inactive because they are students. We do not include these individuals in the overall figure.
The ONS provides data by both nationality and country of birth. For the purposes of this report we use the data on country of birth as, although an individual who has moved to the UK may have obtained British nationality, they remain definitionally a “migrant”.
We include a dataset on “workless” migrants which shows that the five quarters with the highest figures are as follows:
Q2 2024: 1.689m
Q1 2024: 1.67m
Q1: 2012: 1.62m
Q3 2012: 1.62m
Q2 2012: 1.61m
Cost to the Treasury:
To calculate the cost to the Treasury of such a huge level of migrant worklessness we follow the practice of Oxford Economics, which has previously produced reports for the government’s Migration Advisory Committee looking at the costs and benefits of migrants to the economy.
When looking to allocate the costs attributable to an individual migrant they choose to include government per capita spending on: public goods, debt interest, housing development, health, education, social protections, police services, foreign aid, and defence.[1]
Using Institute for Fiscal Studies figures from the 2022/2023 financial year we can see that the costs attributable to an individual migrant are as follows:
Public sector net investment: £772
Depreciation: £887
Social security (non-pensioners): £1,731
Health: £3,118
Education: £1,554
Defence: £817
Public Safety: £646
Transport: £642
Housing: £262
Overseas Aid: £186
Public Sector Debt Interest: £1431
TOTAL: £12,046
This would mean that the total public sector expenditure attributable to workless migrants in the UK is £20.34bn.
However, despite being workless there are still income streams from these migrants that will mitigate the costs.
It is worth noting that those migrants not yet with British nationality and who are workless are still liable to pay the annual Health Surcharge of £1,035.[2] Of the 1.689m, there are 1.1m individuals who meet this criteria.
Thus, the revenue from the Health Surcharge is £1.15bn.
To calculate the amount of indirect tax revenue attributable to these individuals (VAT, alcohol duty etc), it is worth optimistically assuming that they reside in households with a disposable income of £45,000. A figure far above the national household mean of £39,328.[3]
We then take ONS data on the percentage of disposable income spent by households in the third quintile: 14%.[4]
This would mean that the average workless migrant lives in a household where £6,300 per year is spent on indirect taxes. Clearly only a fraction of this figure is actually attributable to the workless individual because partners, offspring and other relatives also account for this figure. However, for the sake of conservatism we have chosen to apply the whole expenditure to the workless individual.
This means that workless migrants can be accredited with £10.6bn in indirect taxes per year.
In sum, we can see that the Treasury spends AT LEAST £8.5bn more per year on workless migrants than they pay via charges and indirect taxes.
Definitions:
Economically inactive: “People not in employment who have not been seeking work within the last 4 weeks and/or are unable to start work within the next 2 weeks.”[5]
Unemployed: people “without a job, (who) have been actively seeking work in the past four weeks and are available to start work in the next two weeks.”[6]
[1] The Fiscal Impact of Immigration on the UK (oxfordeconomics.com)
[2] Skilled Worker visa: How much it costs - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/816864/disposable-income-per-household-uk/
[4] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/theeffectsoftaxesandbenefitsonhouseholdincome/financialyearending2022
[5] Economic inactivity - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
On a positive note. It's a good sign if we no longer need more of those skilled surgeons and top engineers who keep showing up on the boats.
Well looks like we have no jobs so send them back.