Foreigners grab 12,000 jobs monthly in Britain

LONDON, UK: Foreigners took more than 12,000 jobs a month in Britain while 1.2 million British youngsters sat idle at home, a media report said.

The crisis of jobless youths, in the face of a growing army of migrant workers, was "simply unsustainable", Daily Express reported quoting critics Thursday.

The latest figures show that foreign workers are thriving in the labour market as Britons lose jobs.

Senior ministers are now demanding tougher steps to boost opportunities for Britons desperate to work.

They are being led by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith who in July warned that youngsters faced a life on benefits without stronger action to stem the flow of migrant ­workers. He urged firms to give young unemployed Britons a fair chance.

The national statistics office revealed that 280,000 fewer British nationals were working in the three months to September compared to the same period a year earlier - a one percent fall to a total of 26.6 million people, the Express said.

But the number of non-British ­workers rose by six percent, by 147,000, to 2.56 million, it added.

The increase in foreign nationals in work included a 93,000 (16.3 percent) rise in those from eastern European countries which joined the EU in 2004. There was a 28,000 (35 percent) increase in workers from Pakistan and Bangladesh.