Major shift in UK migration trend

United Kingdom, 30th May: UK migration is seeing a noticeable decline in the number of immigrants coming from overseas to live and work in UK.

This has raised doubts over the plans of the new UK government to put a cap on UK immigration.

According to official figures released by the Office for the National Statistics for the last year, the decline has been visible especially among the immigrants hailing from Eastern Europe. The data shows that the number of those arriving in the UK for the first time has been far less than those moving out of the UK.

Figures released by the Home office show that there were 57,000 departures in the period of 1 year to September 2009 while the number of new A8 nationals arriving in the UK was 45,000 during the same period.

The Eastern and central European nations that became part of the EU since the year 2004 include Estonia, Poland, Latvia, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. These 8 nations are collectively referred to as accession eight or A8.

Another decline visible in the UK migration has been in the number of migrants hailing from A8 registering for work in the UK. The data shows that numbers fell to 45,000 in the year 2009 from the previous figures of 100,000 during the same period a year ago.

The number of immigrants after deducting the number of emigrating people for one year ending September 2009 came down from 160,000 to 142,000 for the same period a year ago.

 The declining trend in the UK migration coincided with the global economic slowdown that baffled the UK economy. The figures are the result of the International Passenger Survey of long-term international migration, which is regarded as a guide to migration trend.

The Coalition government of the UK has announced that it will be imposing a cap on the number of non-EU immigrants although the exact number is yet to be decided.

The cap on immigration levels for non-EU nationals will also include regulation of system for international students, strict norms on marriage and a limit on total number of UK work permits to be issue, clarified Damian Green, the UK immigration minister.