Migration amidst recession

There has been a decrease in the number of people emigrating abroad since 2008. However, with positive signs emerging from the World Economy, this short trend is likely to change very soon.

Let us have a look at some of the changes since 2008. Firstly, significant decrease has been observed in the remittances sent by immigrants to their home countries. For example, since 2008, there has been 43 percent decrease in remittances sent home by citizens of Turkey abroad.

Of the 1.4 million workers of Eastern Europe, who came to the UK between 2004 and 2008 from EU agreement countries, almost half returned home by the end of year 2008. Though some former Eastern-Bloc nations have been able to deal with the recession, others have failed to manage it. On the positive side, large numbers of people are optimistic about the economy of the UK which is evident from the fact that UK shares prices have seen significant increase recently.

Talking of the US, one noteworthy change has been the sharp decline in the number of Mexicans coming to the United States, which has been down by more than forty percent since the year 2006.

It can be safely concluded that under the present scenario, immigrants are more likely to stay in the country they migrated to or better live in their home country and wait for things to get better.

Countries like Australia and Canada have however not lowered immigration levels and overall, immigration levels are still getting higher. It is estimated that by the end of 2050, foreign born population of the world would be around 230 million.