Four in Five New UK Jobs Since 2014 Went to Migrants as Benefit Claims Rose 2.3 Million
October 15, 2026 · Frisian News
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Centre for Social Justice analysis of HMRC data shows migrants took four in five of the 3.7 million net new PAYE jobs created in Britain since 2014, while out-of-work benefit claimants rose by 2.3 million and annual welfare spending climbed £50 billion in real terms.
Four in every five new jobs created in Britain since 2014 went to migrants, not British workers. Centre for Social Justice analysis of HMRC data, published Tuesday in a 250-page report called State of Dependency, shows that of the 3.7 million new PAYE positions recorded between July 2014 and December 2025, just 734,000 went to UK nationals. EU nationals took 408,000. Non-EU nationals took around 2.5 million, with 2.1 million of those positions added since 2020.
Over the same period, the number of largely British people receiving out-of-work benefits rose by 2.3 million. Around 6.7 million people across England, Wales and Scotland now receive at least one out-of-work benefit, the CSJ found, roughly one in six working-age adults. Annual spending on working-age benefits has risen by £50 billion in real terms since 2019-20, with the total bill set to hit £136 billion this year.
The twin trends are not coincidental, the CSJ argues. Successive governments filled labour shortages with overseas workers while leaving millions of British people on welfare rather than rebuilding their skills, health and employment prospects. Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the CSJ's founder and architect of universal credit, said ministers had "repeatedly pulled the easy lever of immigration rather than providing a better deal for left-behind communities."
The acceleration since the pandemic is stark. From January 2020 to December 2025, the number of payroll jobs held by British nationals fell in nine of the UK's 12 nations and regions. Scotland lost 53,000 British-held payroll positions, the West Midlands lost 32,000, the South East lost 31,700, the East of England lost 29,400 and London lost 26,500. Over the same period, non-EU payroll jobs rose by 465,200 in London, 284,500 in the South East, 223,900 in the North West and 220,300 in the West Midlands. Non-EU employment grew in every single region, while British employment fell in nine of the twelve.
The sectors that absorbed most of this growth have traditionally offered entry-level routes into work for people with few qualifications. Health and social work accounted for 29 per cent of the rise in non-EU payroll positions, the CSJ found, followed by administrative and support services at 16 per cent, accommodation and food services at 12 per cent and wholesale and retail at 10 per cent. Together those four sectors account for roughly two thirds of the non-EU jobs increase.
A government spokesman told the Daily Mail that "the vast majority of this country's workforce is made up of UK nationals" and pointed to a new skills-based migration system designed to "put British workers first." The PAYE figures do not support that. UK nationals accounted for just 20 per cent of net employment growth across a period spanning Conservative and Labour administrations alike. The CSJ also found that official fiscal forecasts are structurally biased toward immigration: they capture immediate tax receipts from new arrivals but ignore the longer-term welfare costs that accumulate as migrants age and become eligible for benefits. Between 2006 and 2025, total GDP grew 26 per cent in real terms. GDP per person grew only 10 per cent.
The Daily Mail also reported that Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has acknowledged being constantly lobbied by Labour ministers to admit more foreign workers, and that Whitehall departments have spent at least £5 million on more than 1,500 visas for migrant staff since the election. The CSJ estimates immigration now costs taxpayers as much as £16 billion a year in benefit payments to foreign nationals alone.
Successive governments pulled the easy lever; 6.7 million working-age Britons are living with the result.
Published October 15, 2026 · Frisian News