"Our first priority is putting significant investment into raising the skills of the local workforce, particularly helping those who are unemployed to gain new skills and get back into employment. In these difficult economic times however, it's vital that businesses can get the workers they need. We need migrant workers to plug employment gaps in the East of England. Where the right workers aren't available locally, employers must be able to draw on a wider pool of international workers. With these reports EEDA is providing the evidence to help private and public sector partners make decisions so we can get the region through the tough economic times and prepare for the eventual upturn."

"Our research in the East of England has shown that many businesses, from agriculture to high-tech, depend on workers from other countries to survive and grow. Often this is because there are not enough local workers with the right skills and experience. In other cases migrants provide vital, flexible labour where British people can't do the job for practical reasons or simply don't want to do it. So if the availability of migrant labour decreases, the economy could be at significant risk."

"The study shows that most migrant workers in the region are adopting a 'wait and see' attitude before deciding whether to return home. But more must be done to persuade them to stay.

"There is a wide variety of factors that influence migrants' decisions about how long to stay in the UK, including their sense of belonging and community here, desire to improve their English and opportunities to progress in their career and earn better wages. If we are to encourage them to stay and contribute to the East of England economy, we must continue to tackle discrimination and hostility towards foreign workers, provide faster recognition of migrants' skills and better provision of English language training to enable migrants to use their skills fully."