Over 250,000 jobs ''will only go to UK and EU workers''

The prime minister has revealed that over 250,000 skilled UK jobs are to exclude workers from outside UK and the European Union (EU), it has been revealed.

Gordon Brown said that a quarter of a million jobs in the engineering, care and catering sectors will be given to people within the UK and Europe.

In an immigration speech yesterday (November 12th), the prime minister said that the move is intended to revitalise the country's jobs market.

The move is a major step of an effort which has seen the number of non-EU overseas workers coming to work in Britain between November 2008 and August 2009 reduced to 30,000.

Mr Brown commented: "As growth returns I want to see rising levels of skills, wages and employment among those resident here - rather than employers having to resort to recruiting people from abroad."

Meanwhile, Northern Ireland recently received a jobs boost after outsourcing firm Firstsource, announced it will create 150 customer support advisor and operations management jobs in Londonderry.