Unemployment in Oxford stands at about 1.8 per cent, according to the president of Oxfordshire Chamber of Commerce Nigel Wild.

That puts the city well below the national average – but he said that what businesses had noticed was a skills shortage.

Mr Wild said: “The fact that we have got this growth in population doesn’t necessarily mean we have the skills to match the jobs that are going.

“There are a lot of problems for firms, particularly at what they call the technician level.

“We need to be training these people so they can take up the jobs that are there.”

He added that in terms of lower-level jobs in fields such as catering and cleaning, companies struggled to persuade British people to take on the jobs.

He said: “I talk to people in those industries and they can’t get British people into them for love nor money.

“That’s why, when you go into a hotel or restaurant, the person you meet or on washing-up detail will invariably be Eastern European.”

When the Asda Living supermarket opened its doors in Cowley last year, 1,600 people applied for the 70 jobs available.

One of the county’s biggest employers, carmaker BMW’s Mini Plant at Cowley, in Oxford, was able to offer some long-term security for its 3,700 workers when the company announced earlier this month it planned to invest £250m into increasing Mini production at its UK sites in Oxford, Swindon and Birmingham – although no new jobs will be created as a result.