London, Feb. 11: Believe it or not, one out of every 14 workers in Britain is a foreigner, and according to the latest Labour Force survey, the number of such workers has risen above two million mark for the first time.

The Daily Telegraph quotes the survey as saying that there has been a 75 per cent increase in workers from abroad in the last six years, while the number of British employees has dropped by half a million.

It further adds that over 700,000 workers from Eastern Europe have registered to work in the United Kingdom. Most of them were from the eight countries which joined the European Union in 2004 i. e the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia .

Official figures from the survey show that the number of foreigners in the UK workforce increased between 2001 and 2007 by 864,000. The figures were contained in a letter from Karen Dunnell, the national statistician and director of the Office for National Statistics, to the Conservative MP James Clappison, a member of the Commons home affairs select committee.

"The Government has overseen a significant increase in the employment of foreign citizens but have had much less success in creating jobs for British citizens," Clappison said.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "These figures further undermine Gordon Brown's grand and unwise pronouncement to create British jobs for British workers.

The number of UK-born nationals in the workforce is now pegged at 23.9 million, whereas it was 24.4 million in 2001.

The Telegraph says that around 4.8 million people are currently claiming out-of-work benefits and 2.6 million are on incapacity benefits.

It also said that an additional factor in the fall in British workers is emigration. In the 12 months to July 2006, 385,000 people left the country, thought to be the highest number since the 1960s. (ANI)