SCOTS firms are being invited to hire Romanians on the cheap by recruitment companies that operate outwith UK jurisdiction.

Foreign firms have been touting for business with Scottish recruiters, prompting fears migrant workers may be exploited.

Thousands are expected to arrive in the country from Romania and Bulgaria when formal migration restrictions end after this year.

A Bucharest-based recruitment and human resources agency has been promoting its services and is advertising for nursing and other medical staff in the UK, as fears grow about the potential for exploitation of migrant workers.

Success Human Resources TGM Group offers to handle HR issues with recruited staff, saying: "We help our clients to focus on the business, on the value creation, not excessively on personnel recruitment and management."

Huddersfield-based Ioana Danciu, whose now liquidated employment agency Sara Recruitment had its Gangmasters Licensing Authority licence revoked in February last year, is still in business with another firm, Romanian Recruitment, which is looking to supply workers when the restrictions end.

Sara had been supplying restaurant chains, including Scotland-founded Loch Fyne, with workers who claim to be "self-employed" in order to save their employers money on tax.

Loch Fyne's parent company Greene King blamed the chain's previous owners for hiring 60 self-employed chefs from Sara.

Unions fear the unregulated employment agencies leave workers open to exploitation.

Scottish ministers are said to be angry that no forecasts or estimates about future migrant workers are being shared by Westminster.

A Unite source in Scotland said the union's position was informed by experience of organising migrant workers from countries such as Poland and Slovakia.

He said: "The problem is not the workers. It is not that they come in to work in Britain. The problem is that some employers and agencies are exploiting the workers.

"They tend to get them working excessively long hours and at appalling low levels of pay."

Of the 36,990 migrant workers registering for national insurance in Scotland in 2011/12, 1022 were from Romania and 1210 from Bulgaria.

Nobody at the Success Human Resources TGM Group was available for comment.

A Government spokesman said: "As proven already in recent years, Scotland's public services are well equipped to deal with migration."