Half a million fewer Britons are in work following the unprecedented influx of migrants from Eastern Europe, it was disclosed last night.
MPs said the figure demolishes the Government's claim to be providing 'British jobs for British workers'.

Research by the independent House of Commons Library found that 24,473,000 people of working age born in the UK held jobs in 2003 – the year prior to the expansion of the EU.

But the figure has now fallen to 23,948,000, a dramatic cut of 525,000 in the size of the home-grown workforce.

The library's research did not cover the number of jobs taken by foreigners over the same period. But the drop in the number of UK workers has been matched by a surge in arrivals from Poland and other former Eastern Bloc nations.

Since May 2004, when the EU expanded eastwards, 700,000 have registered with the Home Office to work here.

This will fuel suspicions that some UK workers are being forced out of the jobs market by migrants.

Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green said: "Yet again Gordon Brown's dubious claim to provide 'British jobs for British workers' has been exposed as dishonest rhetoric.

"It is clear that the Government is doing the opposite."

Tory MP James Clappison, who unearthed the figures, said the key figure is the fall in the percentage of the UK's working-age population who have jobs – down from 75.7 per cent in 2003 to 75.2 per cent in 2007.

It dispels the Government's claim that immigrants are not taking jobs from British workers, but filling gaps left by a reduction in the size of the British-born workforce.

Instead, the figures suggest that a larger number of Britons of working age are finding themselves out of jobs.

Mr Clappison, a member of the Commons home affairs committee, said: "This is very worrying.

"Both the number of UK nationals of working age and the proportion of them is falling.

"This clearly shows the Government is failing in its objectives.

"At the same time, we are seeing an unprecedented influx from Eastern Europe and record numbers of work permits granted to workers from outside the EU, which is entirely at the Government's discretion."

The British Chamber of Com-merce has already warned that a generation of British children is at risk of going 'from school straight to welfare' while migrants fill skills shortages in the economy.

Director-general David Frost said 500,000 18 to 24-year-olds are out of work, but nobody noticed because immigrants had taken their place in the jobs market.

More than 100,000 young Britons may have been pushed into unemployment by the wave of Eastern European immigrants, an economic analysis on the impact of migration has revealed.

A study by the influential Ernst & Young ITEM Club, found that although the recent influx has boosted Britain's economy and kept inflation low, it may have increased unemployment for younger Britons and reduced pay rises for all.

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