The number of EU workers from eight eastern European countries in the UK has passed a million for the first time, new figures issued today show.

Labour market data shows just over one million people from the group of states, including Poland and Czech Republic, were employed in the three months to June.

The figure relates to the so-called A8 nations - Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia - which joined the EU in 2004.

Compared with the same period last year, the number of workers from the countries increased by around 44,000. And it is nearly four times the level recorded 10 years ago, when the number stood at just over a quarter of a million.

The official statistics also showed there were 266,000 Bulgarians and Romanians in employment - a rise of around 87,000 compared with the second quarter of 2015.

Restrictions on people from the two countries working in the UK were lifted in January 2014.

There were an estimated 944,000 employees from 14 other EU member states including Italy, Portugal, Spain and France.

Overall, between April and June there were 2.23 million EU nationals working in the UK - an increase of 238,000 year-on-year.

The number of workers from outside the EU was little changed at 1.21 million, according to the official data.

Statisticians say the estimates relate to the number of people in employment and should not be used as a proxy for flows of foreign migrants into the UK.

Immigration was seen as a key issue ahead of June's referendum on Britain's membership of the EU.

Earlier this year a row broke out over differences between measures of long-term international migration and the number of National Insurance numbers given to EU nationals.

An official report concluded that migrants coming to Britain for short period were the main driver behind a gap in statistics that fuelled claims arrivals from the bloc had been underestimated.