Migrants create 14% new jobs in the UK: Study

Contrary to the public perception that migrants to the UK depressed the labour market, it has now been acknowledged that foreign entrepreneurs have actually created a large number of new jobs in the country.

Without these migrants, locals would have fewer opportunities and there would have been far fewer start-ups, the Centre for Entrepreneurs and free online company database, DueDil said in a report today.

The figures were revealing: 456,073 foreign entrepreneurs now lived in the UK, defined as founders or co-founders – first directors – of active UK companies, excluding company secretaries and sole properietors.

There were 464,527 active UK firms with foreign nationals as founders or co-founders, according to the report.

Around 2.64 million foreign nationals currently worked in the UK; which suggested that 17.2 per cent of them had launched their own businesses, as against 10.4 per cent of UK nationals in employment.

As regards companies, out of a total of 3,194,981 active UK companies, migrant entrepreneurs were behind 14.5 per cent of the total, or 1 in 7 of all UK companies.

This study confirms that migrants to the UK created a large numbers of jobs for themselves and for others.

The figures were even more pronounced for companies having a turnover between £1 million and £200 million per year; companies founded by migrants that reported employee numbers to Companies House employed 1.16 million people, accounting for 14 per cent of jobs.

According to DueDil founder Damian Kimmelman, himself an American serial "migrant entrepreneur", immigration was one of the UK's most emotive topics for debate.

He added opinions sadly were rarely informed by evidence.

Kimmelman said, the game-changing research proved that migrant entrepreneurs were hyper-productive, net contributors to the UK economy.

He added, historically, the most productive states always encouraged intellectual and technological ferment; and that was what was seen in Britain right now.

The report  comes a fortnight after the  UK's most senior Roman Catholic cleric called on political leaders to "extinguish the discourse of fear" that discounted the contribution of foreign entrepreneurs and workers moving to the UK.