NEARLY 5,000 Romanian and Bulgarian workers could move to the North-East after their countries join the EU, an influential think-tank claims.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) today publishes a report that predicts 56,000 people will migrate to Britain in search of work after accession, which is expected to happen next year.

Most of them, including the 4,600 who could come to this region, will take low-skilled jobs that employers cannot fill, such as cleaning, caring and factory work.

The institute says its estimates are based on the inflow of workers from the ten countries that joined the EU in 2004, including Poland and the Czech Republic - 117,000 across the country in the first year and now estimated to be more than 300,000.

All EU citizens have the right to work anywhere in the union, but restrictions that vary from country to country were placed on the newcomers during a seven-year transition period.

Britain is one of only three states to allow free movement from the outset.

The institute says the Romanians and Bulgarians will be poorer than the people of the countries which joined last time.

It also believes that most will want to go to Italy, Spain and Greece because they are closer to home and have higher numbers of their countrymen already resident.

The report argues that the Government should let the migrants into the country upon accession, saying that the inflow of people is likely to be "relatively small", they are likely to have a positive impact on the British labour market and that they will eventually have to be given free access.

The institute claims migrants from the ten countries that joined in 2004 contributed about £240m to the economy in the first year alone, eight out of ten found work and less than one per cent applied for work-related benefits.

It also maintains nine out of ten visitors stayed for less than three months and there was no evidence the migrants contributed to unemployment among workers already here or depressed their wages.

Danny Sriskandarajah, IPPR associate director, said: "Romanian and Bulgarian accession should be seen as an opportunity, not a threat.

"Workers from these countries will join an increasingly important Eastern European workforce currently doing hard-to-fill jobs in key sectors and regions."

Andrew Sugden, policy director of the North-East Chamber of Commerce, said: "We have seen an awful lot of migration from Eastern Europe, particularly Poland, and by and large they are taking up hard-to-fill vacancies."

He said the predicted arrival of 4,600 migrants would be a modest increase to a regional workforce of 1.1 million.

"We are hearing mostly positive things about what has happened and we wouldn't expect any surprises with this next wave."