The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development says the fall in EU migrant numbers is both good and bad news for British jobseekers as this is yet another indicator of worsening labour market conditions.

The influx of Eastern and Central European migrants to older EU states has not destabilised their labour markets, the European Commission says.

Negative headlines about immigrants were everywhere when thousands of Poles flocked to Britain after their country joined the EU in 2004. Photographer Julia Horsbachk was so incensed she set about documenting the realities of their situation.

Under EU rules, workers who have paid national insurance contributions in Britain for at least two years can claim jobseekers’ allowance for three months anywhere in the EU. ‘British citizens are eligible for the same sort of help from other EU member states,’ said a spokeswoman for the Department for Work and Pensions.

A Polish man conned his way into a job as an HGV driver despite having no licence, a Lincoln court was told. He has pleaded guilty to five charges of fraud and jailed for 12 months. The court was told that deportation papers have been served on him.

Workers migrating to other EU countries have left Romania desperately short of the skills it needs to modernise itself.

The chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission has said that migrant workers leaving the UK meant that unemployment is 1 million lower that it would have been otherwise. He was supported by Tesco, one of the country’s biggest employers, which warned that the departure of eastern European workers this year has masked the true scale of the downturn now gripping the UK.