‘Immigrants are better educated than Britons’

LONDON: Immigrants to Britain are better educated than their British-born counterparts, but are more likely to be working in low-skilled jobs, and suffer from “Dickensian” forms of exploitation, according to separate reports and speeches on Monday.

According to a report from the Bank of England, the country’s central bank, the proportion of foreign-born residents aged between 16 and 64 in Britain has risen from eight per cent in 1995, to 11 per cent last year.

Around a fifth of migrants were born within the European Union, while a further one-fifth were from the Indian sub-continent, and a quarter were from Africa or the Middle East. Of those who have migrated here in the past two years, nearly half — 45 per cent — arrive with a university degree, compared to just 17 per cent of British workers.

The report, however, said that despite those higher education levels among immigrants, they were still more likely to be working in hotels or restaurants. The Bank of England said that while some might eventually use their qualifications to get better jobs, and others could return to their homelands, the overall picture was unclear.