By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 2:39 PM on 1st July 2011
British bosses today said they would rather employ immigrants than UK workers because they lack proper skills and have a bad attitude for the jobs on offer.
Hitting back at Government calls for firms to take on fewer migrant workers, employers said that by comparison foreign workers were better qualified and had good stronger work ethics.
Iain Duncan Smith used a speech in Madrid to appeal to firms to 'give our young people a chance' instead of just handing jobs to foreign immigrants.
David Frost said that foreign workers were better skilled and have the right attitude after IDS issued a plea to business to recruit jobless British youths
Lawyers stepped in on the row adding that businesses could face claims of racial discrimination if they went for British candidates over foreigners entitled to work in the country.
David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: 'They expect young people to come forward to them who are able to read, to write, to be able to communicate and have a strong work ethic.
'Too often that is not the case and there is a stream of highly able Eastern European migrants who are able to fill those jobs.
'They are skilled, they speak good English and, more importantly, they want to work.'
Duncan Smith had said ther needed to be 'an immigration system that gives the unemployed a level playing field'.
He added: 'If we do not get this right then we risk leaving more British citizens out of work, and the most vulnerable group who will be the most affected are young people.'
Controlling immigration was 'critical' to avoid 'losing another generation to dependency and hopelessness', Mr Duncan Smith was due to say.
'But Government cannot do it all. As we work hard to break welfare dependency and get young people ready for the labour market, we need businesses to give them a chance, and not just fall back on labour from abroad.
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'If Government and business pull together on this, I believe we can finally start to give our young people a chance.
'A chance to experience the benefits of work that so many of the rest of us take for granted. A chance to become productive members of our society. And a chance of a better future.'
Neil Carberry, the CBI director for employment policy, said firms wanted to give young people an opportunity, but they had to pick the right candidate for the job.
'Tackling unemployment is a challenge for everyone, and businesses want to give young British people a chance,' he said.
'Employers should choose the best person for the job. The challenge is to ensure that more young Britons are in a position to be the best candidate.
'The Government's focus should be on boosting private sector growth, which will deliver more job opportunities, and reforming our welfare and skills systems to make sure our young people are ready for work.'
Paul Griffin, the head of employment law at the law firm DBS, said employers could fall foul of anti-discrimination legislation if they favoured British job applicants.
'Any favouring of British workers above those from the EU or anywhere else if they have the right to work here, could make an employer liable for a claim for direct race discrimination under the Equalities Act,' he said.
'Iain Duncan Smith's speech, whilst on the surface seeming positive, is actually a crude political act to scapegoat migrant workers for a lack of jobs.'
The work ethics of foreign workers make them better candidates for jobs than many British workers
Shadow work and employment secretary Liam Byrne said that the numbers of jobs going to foreign workers had actually risen since Mr Duncan Smith and the coalition Government took office.
'He has shut down the key programme that gets people back into work. His department now spends more money on stationery than it spends on getting young people back into work,' he told the BBC.
In his speech to the Foundation for Social Studies and Analysis think tank in the Spanish capital, Mr Duncan Smith blamed the 'slack attitude' of the former Labour government to immigration for the increasing proportion of jobs taken by overseas workers.
He said that government and business needed to work together to ensure the immigration system 'works in the interests of Britain' and the unemployed are given a 'level playing field' to compete for jobs.
'In the short term, controlling immigration is critical or we will risk losing another generation to dependency and hopelessness. But Government cannot do it all,' he said.
'As we work hard to break welfare dependency and get young people ready for the labour market we need businesses to play their part and give them a chance, and not just fall back on labour from abroad.
'If Government and business pull together on this, I believe we can finally start to give our young people a chance.'
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