One in five migrants in the United Kingdom from Romania and Bulgaria of working age are not in employment, according to the telegraph.co.uk.

More than a quarter of a million people from Romania and Bulgaria are currently living in the UK, according to an analysis of the official Labour Force Survey. Of those, 235,000 were of working age but only 189,000 were in employment – giving an employment rate of 80 per cent.

“The growth in the Romanian and Bulgarian population in the UK has been steady for the last seven years, despite transitional controls that limited their access to the labour market and welfare state in the UK," said Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory, which is based at Oxford University.

Work restrictions in the EU for Romanians and Bulgarians were lifted at the beginning of January, 2014.

Diana Mesesan, diana@romania-insider.com