British bosses hire thousands of Romanians as UK jobless soars

British companies are advertising thousands of jobs in Romania as UK unemployment hits a 17-year high.

British bosses have put more than 2,400 vacancies on a Romanian recruitment website for a variety of roles including nurses, engineers, chefs and other skilled workers.

The vacant roles are available at a time when unemployment in the UK has reached 2.69m, a 17-year high.

Online recruitment agency tjobs.ro, based in Bucharest, says British firms are looking to fill 2,434 new jobs with Romanian workers. The figure is above Germany, which is currently advertising 2,387 Germany-based roles with the website.

Posts include £2,000-a-month cab drivers, doctor, care-home assistant and hotel vacancies.

The move is likely to inflame the migrant workers row in Britain, with official figures revealing earlier this month that more than 160,000 Brits have lost out on a job to an immigrant in the past five years.

A Briton is “displaced” from the labour market for every four extra migrants from outside the EU that arrive in the UK, the Migration Advisory Committee (Mac) concluded.

The findings were in contrast to a study by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr) which claimed that the number of immigrants coming to the UK had little or no impact on the number of unemployed.

The move could be a snub to British workers who, some employers claim, have less "work ethic" than migrant workers.

Some employers claim migrant workers have a better attitude to work than British people, making them more likely to secure jobs.

Will Davies, managing director of property maintenance firm Aspect, said it was "inevitable" British jobs would go to foreigners when "young Britons don’t want to work".

He said: "It is becoming acceptable for the young in Britain to be unemployed and use the economic situation and the massive youth unemployment figures as an excuse, but the reality is foreign workers are hard working, punctual and have a more positive attitude.”

Sandwich chain Pret-a-Manger, recently criticised by ministers for hiring foreign nationals at a time when British unemployment was rising, also suggested it would hire more Brits if it received more applications from them.

In some stores, particularly in London, more non-UK born workers applied for jobs compared to British workers, Pret said.

Tjobs.ro was founded by Calin Stefanescu and Sebastian Niezgoda in 2009.

British bosses hire thousands of Romanians as UK jobless soars …