Low-skilled British workers are losing to foreign migrants in the jobs market because they are unemployable and lack the motivation to work, according to a government report published yesterday.

The arrival of an estimated one million Eastern European migrants had not increased unemployment among native Britons or lowered their wages, according to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) study. While migrants from the eight former Soviet bloc states that joined the EU in 2004 found it easy to find work, Britons encountered difficulties because of “issues around basic employability skills, incentives and motivation”.

The study, on the impact of migration on native workers, called for government policies to help the low-skilled by ensuring that they look for available work and providing education and training focused on making them employable.

Home Office studies published last year and in 2006 also highlighted how employers preferred the general attitude and work ethic of the Eastern Europeans to those of British workers.

One study said that migrant workers “tended to be more motivated, reliable and committed than domestic workers. For example, migrants were said to be more likely to: demonstrate lower turnover and absenteeism; be prepared to work longer and flexible hours; be satisfied with their duties and hours of work; and work harder in terms of productivity and speed.”

In the hotel and catering industry employers said that they could not find domestic workers willing to work flexible hours. “The British want to work 9-5 and to have weekends free. The foreign nationals want to work evenings and night-work as they are studying,” one study said.

An agricultural employer in East Anglia said that he had tried getting people from the Jobcentre but found that they turned up for interviews so that he could sign a form that would allow them to continue to claim jobseekers' allowance.

A Home Office report quoted one manufacturing employer in the North East who said that the 11 Latvian workers in his company had only had one day off between them in the past year, compared with an average of 12 days a year for each of the rest of the workforce. Another North East employer, in the hotels and catering sector, said that migrant workers had much better sickness and absence records and “sometimes I have to remind them to take their paid holidays”.

The latest report was published as separate Home Office research estimated that immigration had contributed £1,650 to every British person's output over the past ten years. It also came as Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, made clear that individual police forces and hospitals facing difficulties from a surge in migration in their area would not benefit from a new fund raised by a levy on immigration applications.

Ms Blears said that the cash from the multimillion-pound fund should be spent on websites for migrants or English-language training. “I think we can make the most of it by not providing bits and bobs to individual hospitals and local police forces,” she told an audience in North London.

In February ministers indicated that schools, town halls and health authorities could benefit from the new Migration Trust Fund.The DWP study, carried out by Jonathan Portes, the department's chief economist, and Sara Lemos, an academic at the University of Leicester, said that migration from Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Slovakia had no adverse impact on the labour market outcomes of natives.

“Nor do we find a statistically significant impact on wages, either on average or at any point in the wage distribution, although the evidence here is less complete,” it added.

David Frost, the director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said that the reluctance of Britons to work was due to the benefits culture. “The Government is right to point out that a lack of motivation and skills are the major reasons why so many British-born people are currently out of work. Migrant workers have served both businesses and the economy extremely well in recent years, and it is only through reform of the benefits system and continued improvement of our education system that the Government will be able to eradicate the welfare dependency culture.”

Explore Economics

• Pre-Budget Report 2008

• Budget 2009

• World Economic Forum

• The Times MPC

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive