Britons account for 9 in 10 of the additional people in work in the UK since the 2016 referendum and businesses are “clearly already adjusting” to lower EU immigration, the Government has said.

Alok Sharma, Employment Minister, said the number of EU nationals joining the workforce since the Brexit vote in 2016 had fallen to fewer than 35,000.

But in the two years before the referendum more than 410,000 EU citizens joined the workforce.

That means between 2014 and 2016 EU nationals accounted for almost half of the UK’s growth in employment but since then they are responsible for just five per cent.

Despite the fall, there is now more than one million extra people in work in the UK since 2016.

Mr Sharma said that was because unemployed Britons and so-called “returners” - people who left work for childcare or health reasons who could now go back to work - were now bolstering the employment numbers.

He said: “While EU nationals accounted for almost half (over 45 per cent) of the UK’s growth in employment between 2014 and 2016, since 2016 that has fallen to five per cent.

“Yet since the referendum there have been over one million more people in work in the UK, up to a record 32.7 million in February 2019.