Almost nine in 10 new jobs created over the past decade have been taken by foreign-born workers despite a sharp increase in the number of skilled British workers, official figures show.

The number of British people in work has slumped to the lowest level since Labour was elected in 1997, undermining claims made by Gordon Brown that employment was at a record high.

Since 1997, some 1.4 million fewer Britons work in manufacturing, yet 113,000 more foreign-born workers are in the sector. Of the 1.7 million more people in employment since 1997, 1.5 million were born outside the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics.

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The figures have been uncovered by a former Labour minister who is urging the Government to urgently restrict immigration from eastern Europe to help young Britons gain employment.

Frank Field, the former welfare minister, said that since 1997 the number of skilled Britons in the workplace - those with a National Vocational Qualification at level two as a minimum - had increased by 2.8 million.

However, there had been only a 310,000 net increase in the number of Britons in work in that time - and the number had actually dropped since 2003 after mass immigration from eastern Europe.

Mr Field said yesterday: "What the Government needs to do is face up to the fact that we need to restrict the movement of labour from eastern Europe.

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