New figures from the Home Office say that restaurant operators make up the vast majority of employers that get fined for using illegal workers. These figures are based on how many employers have been fined since the new laws were introduced last year.

The new laws that came out in February of 2008, have already led to a record number of 233 firms being prosecuted for employing illegal emigrants to work for them. 173 of all of these cases were concerning restaurants or catering businesses.

The figures do note that most of these restaurants that are being fined are independently own restaurants. However, there are some familiar names as well that have been fined for hiring illegal workers. This includes TGI Friday’s, Strada, Pizza Hut, and Paramount Holdings.

With the introduction of the Asylum and Nationality Act of 2006, which was also responsible for introducing the UK’s point based system, leaves it to the employers to make sure that their employees are legally entitled to work there. Many firms have already faced fines that cost as much as £10,000 for each illegal worker they employ. More than £3.4 million has already been dished out due to these fines. Before the legislation was changed, there were no more than 38 cases that were brought against these kinds of companies every year.

The managing director of the human resources service firm Giant Precision, Matthew Brown, said that the new civil penalty for employing these illegal emigrants has made a very big difference in the UK Border Agency’s activity to bring these cases to court.

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