One per cent of entire Slovakian population living in Britain

There were an estimated 8,000 Slovaks living in Britain at the time the country was created in 1999 by the break up of Czechoslovakia. In 2004 Slovakia joined the European Union and they now represent the fastest growing foreign-born group living and working in the UK.

An estimated 52,000 Slovakians are now resident in Britain. It represents a six times fold increase in the Slovakian population in Britain but more alarmingly it is the equivalent to 1% of the total population of the country.

The number of Latvian has grown from about 7,000 to an estimated 39,000 in the same period and the number from Romania, which joined the EU later, has risen from an estimated 14,000 in 2004 to 53,000 today.

Eight more Eastern European countries, and of course Turkey, are in line to join the European Union by 2018. Eastern European Workers are often paid below what a British worker would have been paid, they work long hours and accept difficult working conditions.

The reality is that they have added enormously to the competition that British workers face and are one reason why since 1997 a huge proportion of new jobs created in the UK have gone to foreign born workers.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8571092/One-per-cent-of-entire-Slovakian-population-living-in-Britain.html