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Annex A: Accession 8 Nationals Working in the Care Sector
The Home Office and other Departments jointly publish the Accession Monitoring Report about the movement of nationals from 8 countries that joined the European Union on 1 May 2004. These are the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia - the 'Accession 8'. The UK Government put in place transitional measures to regulate Accession 8 nationals' access to the labour market (via the Worker Registration Scheme) and to restrict access to benefits.
The Accession Monitoring Report May 2004 - June 2005 was published on 23 August 2005. In total there were 232,500 applicants to the Worker Registration Scheme in the UK between 1 May 2004 and 30 June 2005.
Occupations of registered workers July 04 - June 05 UK
Process operative (other Factory worker) | 40,270 |
Kitchen and catering assistants | 11,800 |
Packer | 11,650 |
Farm worker/ Farm hand | 9,145 |
Cleaner, domestic staff | 8,895 |
Waiter, waitress | 8,660 |
Warehouse Operative | 8,605 |
Maid / Room attendant (hotel) | 6,510 |
Care assistants and home carers | 5,485 |
Sales and retail assistants | 4,965 |
Labourer, building | 4,585 |
Crop harvester | 4,010 |
Bar staff | 3,395 |
Food processing operative (fruit/veg) | 3,245 |
Food processing operative (meat) | 2,715 |
Chef, other | 2,535 |
Driver, HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) | 1,920 |
Administrator, general | 1,845 |
Fruit picker (farming) | 1,805 |
Driver, delivery van | 1,315 |
Total top 20 | 143,350 |
other | 37,735 |
Total | 181,085 |
Characteristics of registered workers
- the vast majority are young and single: 82% were aged 18 - 34
- 95% had no dependants living with them in the UK
- only 2% had dependants under the age of 17 with them.
- 97% were working full time (more than 16 hours a week)
- the vast majority (80%) were earning £4.50 - £5.99 per hour
- 47% were in temporary employment, 50% were in permanent employment and 3% did not give information (the proportion varied considerably from sector to sector).
There is information for Scotland, though the basis (both the total number and the employment sectors) differs from that in the table above. It states that of 219,905 workers from the 'Accession 8' countries between May 04-June 05 in the UK 14,845 were in Scotland and employed in the following sectors:
Admin, Bus & Management | 1,585 |
Hospitality & Catering | 4,350 |
Agriculture | 3,625 |
Manufacturing | 735 |
Food/Fish/Meat Processing | 1,860 |
Health and Medical | 755 |
Retail | 290 |
Construction and Land | 815 |
Transport | 270 |
Entertainment and Leisure | 160 |
Others/Unknown | 410 |
Total in Scotland | 14,845 |
There is no breakdown of the Health and Medical heading for Scotland, but at UK level 77% were care assistants and home carers. Applying that percentage suggests around 580 care assistants and home carers from the 'Accession 8' countries were working in Scotland in the period May 04-June 05.
These figures are not a complete picture, as they refer only to 8 specific countries and do not include, for example, nationals from South Africa and the Philippines often mentioned in anecdote, but they shed some light on the picture.
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