Half of Olympic Park Workers Are Non-British

It has been recently revealed that almost half of the workers employed in the construction ..

16:19 03 July 2012

It has been recently revealed that almost half of the workers employed in the construction of the Olympic Park for London 2012 are overseas workers. This means that four out of ten jobs are filled by foreign workers. 

 

To be more specific, out of a total of 46,000 jobs, 18,600 of them went to people from overseas. The highest hiring rate went to Eastern Europe. This went on while British workers struggled to find jobs in the face of the current economic crisis. 

 

This is in spite of the promises made by London’s ministers that the Olympic Games would provide Britons with thousands of jobs. Gordon Brown of the Olympic Delivery Authority said that the Olympic Park would create a skills legacy for East London as it offered British jobs for British workers.

 

The top people working behind the Olympics 2012 preparations, however, explained that 98% of contracts for the project were awarded to companies registered in Britain and that they had no control over the recruitment procedures of those firms. 

 

Business leaders came to their defense by saying that there is a chronic shortage of manual skills in the UK. Critics, however, are adamant, insisting the contractors hired from outside of London due to cheaper labor costs. 

 

This statement has confirmed the reports, much to the dismay of London taxpayers who had collectively provided a £9.3billion investment in the Olympic Park project in hopes of reaping economic benefits for the long term.