Philip Hammond has attempted to reassure bankers and big employers that Theresa May’s government is not adopting a new anti-business stance.

Speaking in New York where he was meeting representatives of Wall Street banks , the chancellor insisted the government’s proposal to force firms to publish how many foreign workers they employed was not aimed at the financial services sector. He also emphasised that the government’s pro-business credentials remained intact.

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Hammond told Bloomberg TV: “The problem is not highly skilled and highly paid bankers, brain surgeons, software engineers. You will not find, if you walk around towns in Britain and ask people how they feel about migration, that they a have problem with people with high skills and high earnings coming to the UK ... they recognise that those people are a positive contribution to the UK economy. The issue we have to deal with is people with low skills competing for entry-level jobs.”

He added: “We have to recognise that part of the mood in the UK that drove the referendum decision is a mood about the pressure on wages at the lowest end, the entry-level jobs in the economy, from large-scale migration, largely from eastern Europe. We have to address that issue, that’s the clear mandate we have received from the British people.”

Hammond said Britain could now do more business with the US because the country felt closer to the US than to Europe. “I think most people in Britain feel probably halfway across the Atlantic ... rather than just 20 miles off the coast of Europe.”

Since the Conservative party conference speech by the home secretary, Amber Rudd – after which it was made clear a consultation paper would include an option to require firms to disclose the proportion of non-UK workers they employed – large and small businesses have expressed concern about the “divisive and damaging” impact the proposal could have.

City employers are also concerned about the signals any such move might send at a time when they are also urging Hammond to find a way to maintain access to the EU after Brexit.

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Mark Boleat, chair of the policy and resources committee at the City of London Corporation – the local authority for the traditional heart of the financial centre, said: “The British government keeps saying Britain is open for business but it needs to be open for talent.”

The latest census data, from 2011, show that more than 20% of workers in the City of Londonare from outside the UK, and policymakers are concerned about the possible impact.

Boleat said that in the coming weeks the corporation would publish ideas on a new visa for London, which could grant permission for overseas workers to be employed in the capital.

The mood in the City has soured this week after May said she would trigger article 50 of the Lisbon treaty by the end of March 2017, the start of the formal exit from the EU. That statement has helped drive the sterling to 31-year lows against the dollar. Rudd’s remarks have made sentiment in the usually pro-Tory City worse.

According to a report by Oliver Wyman, for the lobby group CityUK, the UK’s financial services industry, of which the City is a large part, generates £205bn in revenue and employs 1.1 million people across the UK. The report warned that a hard Brexit, leaving the UK without access to the remaining 27 EU member states, could put 35,000 jobs at risk.

Referring to Rudd’s remarks, Paul Donovan, global chief economist at UBS Wealth Management, said: “In the world of economics this is known as signalling effect: it might be quite difficult to persuade foreign investors to invest in a country whose government could be accused of branding foreigners as second-class or inferior participants in the economy.”

Hammond acknowledged in the Bloomberg interview that a crackdown on immigration could hold back economic growth. But he said growth should not be based on low-paid, low-skilled, migrant labour. “What we’ve seen in the last few years is an economy that is growing, but GDP per capita has hardly grown at all. We need to see our economic expansion coming from an improvement in productivity, not simply from bringing ever larger numbers of low skilled people into the economy.”

In his charm offensive with Wall Street firms he is thought to have taken a constructive approach to concerns about how access to the EU might be maintained in the run-up to Brexit. He is expected to hold more meetings in Washington on Friday on the sidelines of annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund, which is attended by senior bankers from around the globe.

Large US banks have warned since the Brexit vote that they could now be forced to cut jobs in the City. Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JP Morgan – which employs 16,000 in the UK, said the company would have to move thousands of employees to other branches in the eurozone. Goldman Sachs has said it could restructure its UK arm.

Hammond acknowledged that the financial services sector would be difficult to accommodate under an agreement that might suit manufacturers through the World Trade Organisation.

He said: “I can reassure people in the financial services sector, in all parts of it, that we are listening to what they’re saying and we’re understanding the very nuanced positions that different subsectors have about their needs.

“The government is a pro-business government, strongly supportive of open markets, free markets, open economies, free trade. But we have a problem – and it’s not just a British problem, it’s a developed world problem – in keeping our populations engaged and supportive of our market capitalism, our economic model.”