New report reveals UK immigrants succeed in IT, retail and healthcare sectors

A study by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) has shown that overall, the rate of UK immigration imposes 'somewhat less than proportionate costs' on public services as non-European economic migrants are less likely to use health and social services.

The report claims that this is due their relatively young age, good health and their professional qualifications. While migrants can be said to place a higher demand on education expenditure due to the high rate of migrants arriving during the school year, the costs for language support are said to be significantly lower as many migrants are from English-speaking countries.

This research would be appear to be in direct conflict of recent reports that at least 160,000 British workers have lost out on jobs in the last 15 years and future UK immigration predictions will require an extra 112,00 homes to be built by 2017.

The reports claim that migrants cost the British taxpayers thousands of pounds in education, healthcare and social services. However, migrants are typically net contributors, meaning they pay back, often significantly more, in taxes.

The research by the NIESR was commissioned by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) which is acknowledged by members of most political parties as being the most non-partisan authority on UK immigration.

A spokesman for the MAC, Professor David Metcalf claimed that migrants typically aim for jobs in retail, healthcare and IT which has led some to claim that this therefore makes these industries the most likely to be affected by increased immigration. However, the study also stated that "migrants are found to increase wages at the top of the UK wage distribution and to lower wages at the bottom of the distribution".

While lower wages have long been assumed to have a negative impact on the UK job market, the NIESR maintain that migrants had little or no impact on UK unemployment.