The UK is suffering a significant brain drain as skilled professionals and managers leave the country to be replaced by low-skilled workers from Eastern Europe.
Writing in the annual report on international migration from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Professor John Salt, an expert from University College London warns that the net effect is a de-skilling of the workforce.
"The evidence suggests that migration flows are tending towards a deskilling of the UK labour market, which is gaining manual and clerical workers but losing professionals and managers."
Official figures suggest that some 272,000 Britons emigrated between 2000 and 2005, 42 per cent of whom were professionals or managers.
During the same period, 639,000 non-Britons took up residence, Only a third of whom were professionals. But many argues that this figure is too low, putting the number of arrivals from Eastern Europe at more than 700,000.
Daily Telegraph | Migration tally reveals British brain drain