EU migrants account for as many as one in 10 workers in some sectors of the economy , official figures have revealed.

More than two million workers from the EU are employed in industries including manufacturing, hospitality, healthcare and financial services.

The findings lay bare the challenge of introducing curbs on free movement rules as the Government enters Brexit negotiations.

A detailed report from the Office for National Statistics shows that last year an estimated 3.4 million workers, or 11% of the UK labour market, were overseas nationals.

They included about 2.2 million EU nationals (7%) and 1.2 million non-EU nationals (4%).

Anna Bodey, of the ONS, said: “Today’s analysis shows the significant impact international migration has on the UK labour market.

“It is particularly important to the wholesale and retail, hospitality, and public administration and health sectors, which employ around 1.5 million non-UK nationals.”

An estimated 3.4 million workers were overseas nationals (
Image:
Getty)

One in seven workers (14%) in the wholesale and retail trade, hotels and restaurants sector are international migrants, including more than half a million from the EU.

Eight percent of workers in manufacturing are from the eight central and eastern European countries (EU8) which joined the EU in 2004 - the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Workers from the EU as a whole made up 11% of the manufacturing sector, while one in eight (12%) staff in the UK’s financial and business services sector are foreign nationals, including 382,000 from the EU;.

The report said the highest number of migrant workers is employed in “elementary occupations”.

The International Labour Organisation defines such jobs as those which “consist of simple and routine tasks which mainly require the use of hand-held tools and often some physical effort”.

They include selling goods or cleaning and about 669,000 foreigners, including 510,000 EU nationals, are employed in such roles.

This is followed by professional occupations, with an estimated 658,000 non-UK nationals, including 352,000 from the EU.

Statistics also indicate Romanians and Bulgarians work more hours than UK nationals.

Compared with the national average earnings of £11.30 per hour, workers from a group of 14 EU countries including Germany, Italy and France, earned more (£12.59), whereas EU8 nationals and Romanians and Bulgarians had the lowest pay at £8.33.

Ms Bodey said this partly reflected the numbers in lower-skilled jobs, adding: “Many EU migrants are also more likely to be over-educated for the jobs they are in.”

Household population figures showed rises across all EU nationality groupings between 2011 and 2016.

Around 3.5 million EU nationals were resident in the country in 2016 - up by more than a million compared with five years earlier, the statistics suggest.

The report said that though numbers increased, the proportion of UK residents by nationality group has largely remained the same.