Thursday 22 February 2018

"Migration figures: Highest number of EU nationals leaving UK in a decade"

... screams the BBC:

The number of EU citizens leaving the UK is at its highest level for a decade, figures from the Office for National Statistics show. It estimates that 130,000 EU nationals emigrated in the year to September, the highest number since 2008.

Oh dear, so our European brothers and sisters are voting with their feet like the Remainers threatened they would and the Leavers hoped/promised they would? I suppose some of the wilder forecasts made by either side prior to the Referendum will actually happen, if only by coincidence.

I wonder who'll do our nursing and harvest our vegetables instead...

Meanwhile, 220,000 EU nationals came to live in the UK - 47,000 fewer than the previous year. Net EU migration - the difference between arrivals and departures - was 90,000, the lowest for five years.

OK, nothing to worry about then. This is all as fatuous as Nixon's comment that "The rate of increase of inflation is going down."

11 comments:

jack ketch said...

Are there any reliable stats -that a lay man such as myself might understand- as to the nationality of those coming and going (ie how many are French/German/Dutch etc etc)?

hreward2 said...

Half the patients in Doctors surgeries and hospital treatments centres are immigrants who have contributed not one penny in taxes .
Not noticed that MARK ?

Mark Wadsworth said...

Jk, they used to split into immigrants from EU 15 and newer member states.

H, immigrants do not make up half the UK population, so it's unlikely that half of NHS patients are immigrants. Most EU immigrants come here to work and they do pay tax.

So no, I hadn't noticed it, any more than I noticed the flying spaghetti monster on top of Buckingham palace.

jack ketch said...

any more than I noticed the flying spaghetti monster on top of Buckingham palace.

That is no way to speak of our new "Queen Of Hearts", Her UberRoyal H-ay-ghness , Princess Meghan.

Dinero said...

In the Brexit commentary migration/immigration seems to get conflated with free movement of labour. They are not the same thing.

Ralph Musgrave said...

“Who’ll harvest our vegetables?” Since Brexiteers want a cut in PERMANENT migration to the UK as distinct from a cut in the largely TEMPORARY labour that comes from East Europe to harvest vegetables, you‘d think that post Brexit it would be easy enough to have an arrangement that let in temporary workers.

Re “who’ll do our nursing”, it really isn't difficult for the UK (or any other country) to train the number of nurses it needs. Though obviously given that we’ve chosen to rely on imported nurses for decades, there’ll be a TEMPORARY problem if we suddenly turn off that supply.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Din, true.

RM, agreed on both.

DBC Reed said...

I sometimes wonder how British industry run by the crème de la crème of British management could not turn a profit when provided with the reliable ,cheap and well-trained European labour which is now so unpopular over here.Perhaps we also needed the European management.

Mark Wadsworth said...

DBC, aren't most Premier League clubs managed by foreigners?

Lola said...

DBCR Oh yeah. The profits of European companies as a percentage of global profits have declined by about 50% since 2000. The Japanese with 173m people create wealth (make profits) at the rate of 50% of Europe of ~743 million people. EU and European management ain't that wonderful.

DBC Reed said...

@L
The argument I was trying to make had the emphasis on the cheap foreign labour normally considered a blessing over here.Perhaps the explanation of British management's all round walliness is that cheap reliable foreign labour is not all its cracked up to be.Perhaps businesses benefit from expensive unionised labour which after all provides greater demand for goods and services, as long its not taxed privately by land owners and rentseekers.
Let us unite in a sense of common purpose under the banner: Monster high wages and LVT !(or land nationalisation if you prefer).