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Chapter 1: What is the truth behind the claim of migrant hiring rates?
Hello and welcome to More or Less with me, Tim Harford. This week's programme line-up is something to warm the heart of Tony Blair himself – education, education, oh hang on, immigration. We resolve a friendly wager between two policy wonks about what VAT on private schools would do to demand for private schooling. We revisit Welsh literacy, putting your questions to an expert.
A recent A-level maths paper caused controversy for being unfair and confusing. We'll figure out what went on. But first... Certain claims floating about the internet got the attention of not one, not two, but five loyal listeners recently. Chloe, John, Steve, Sarah and Emma all got in touch to ask about headlines such as this from the Daily Mail.
Chapter 2: How did VAT on school fees impact pupil numbers?
27 young migrants are hired for every British youngster as youth worklessness fuelled by soaring non-EU immigration, analysis reveals.
The news articles all cite research from the right-leaning think tank the Centre for Social Justice, or CSJ. The headline for their article is this. 27 young non-EU migrants hired for every young Brit since 2020, analysis reveals. Our five listeners wanted to know if this ratio was reputable. Our famous five correspondent Lizzie McNeill has been taking a look. Hello Lizzie.
Hi Timmy.
Chapter 3: Could dual-language teaching explain Wales' literacy issues?
No.
Noted.
So this would be remarkable if it's true, although I'm not sure how it could be. There must be two or three million young people being hired over this time period, and I don't think there are tens of millions of young migrant workers, are there?
Oh, Tim, you think the headline means that 27 young non-EU migrants are hired for every young Brit since 2020?
That is literally the headline of the report.
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Chapter 4: What made the recent Maths A-Level exam so difficult?
Yeah, that's what it says, but it's not what it's saying, you know?
Right. So what is it saying?
Well, to see what they're saying, you have to completely disregard the headline and look at what the analysis actually does.
Which is?
Right. So the CSJ used payroll data from HMRC and compared the employment numbers for under-25s at two points in time, January 2020 and December 2025.
With you so far?
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Chapter 5: What were the results of the wager on VAT and private school attendance?
Excellent. They then looked at the proportion of those workers who were UK nationals or non-EU nationals. In 2020, the number for UK nationals was around 3.84 million, and this rose to 3.85 million in 2025.
So about a 10,000 increase?
Yeah, in fact, closer to 11,000.
OK, but how many young UK nationals were hired in that period?
according to the Centre for Social Justice, 11,000. That's the maths.
No, that is not the maths. I'm going to guess that almost all of these 3.85 million young people with jobs in 2025 were hired at least once in the last five years, and many of them will have been hired several times. I mean, I think I was hired four or five times before I turned 25, and in general, the UK labour market has quite a bit of turnover. People are leaving and entering jobs all the time.
Quite.
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Chapter 6: How do bilingual students perform in standardized tests?
Emma Monk, who is a loyal listener and social media debunker, made this point on Twitter. But both you and Emma are missing the point, which is that when the Centre for Social Justice used the word hired, they don't mean it. They mean aggregate increase in the number of jobs over five years.
Well, that's nonsense. Presumably you challenged them on this point.
Yeah, they said that we were splitting hairs.
That's not splitting hairs.
Chapter 7: What factors contribute to the NEET rate among young people?
That's using the English language. And this really matters because in a few years, demographic change is going to mean that there's no increase at all in the number of native-born young people with jobs because the number of native-born young people is going to be falling. Will they say then that literally no young person has been hired?
Shall I go through the rest of the maths for you?
OK, go on.
So the number of young UK nationals with a job increased by 11,000 between 2020 and 2025, and the number of non-EU nationals in work rose from 80,000 to 370,000, an increase of 290,000. Keep going. The CSJ then compared these increases and divided one by the other. That's how they get their 27 to 1 figure, because 290,000 divided by 11,000 equals about 27. That's number wang.
Chapter 8: How has the introduction of VAT affected private school demographics?
But actually, several million young UK nationals have been hired, probably more than once.
Yes, and by the same logic, most of the 370,000 young non-EU nationals too.
So to fix the headline, around nine or ten British young workers hired for every one non-EU migrant?
Yep.
So the original headline's no good. It is true that the number of employed young UK nationals has been pretty flat over the past five years, and the number of non-EU working people has gone up a lot, but it's not clear whether that's a good or a bad thing.
Yes, and it's missing one part of the story.
Oh?
For some reason, the CSJ completely ignored young workers with EU nationality. The number of these has collapsed over the same period, from nearly 240,000 in 2020 to 63,000 in 2025, a fall of more than 170,000.
Which is the post-Brexit change in migration.
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