Migration rises despite fall in workers arriving from the EU

MIGRATION into the UK is on the rise as non-eu nationals arrive in growing numbers, more than replacing a slide in EU citizens coming to Britain.

Net migration rose to 282,000 in 2017, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, up from 249,000 in 2016. This is still short of the high of 332,000 in 2015, but takes the number of arrivals minus departures back above its annual average of a quarter of a million over the past five years.

New arrivals are increasingly likely to have a job confirmed before they reach the country, the ONS said. EU na- tionals are also more likely to arrive in Britain for work rather than study.

Companies are worried the country is suffering from a skills shortage because unemployment is at a 40-year low and that a fall in immigration would intensify the problem. “Skills gaps are opening up across the economy. Individuals from abroad play a crucial role in addressing these shortages, in sectors from agriculture right through to financial services. But international workers also bring new ideas, management techniques, and a wealth of knowledge about foreign markets, which helps lift British trade and productivity,” said Tej Parikh, senior economist at the Institute of Directors.

Net migration from the EU into the UK fell to 101,000 in 2017, its lowest level since 2012, while migration from elsewhere in the world increased to 277,000 last year, up from 175,000 in 2016. This was driven particularly by larger numbers of migrants from Asia, though there was also a small increase from North America, Oceania and Subsaharan Africa.

“It’s a mystery how the number of non-eu workers is increasing when there are so many restrictions being placed on the visa limit for recruiting highly skilled non-eu workers,” said Gerwyn Davies, at the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development.

“The sharp increase in the number of citizens from Asia suggests that employers are going to greater lengths to address rising recruitment difficulties by using loopholes such as ancestral visas and the intra-company transfer scheme,” Mr Davies added.

Student numbers have also recovered after a sharp fall in 2016. Officials believe this was the result of a blip in 2016 data rather than a genuine resurgence in 2017. One important shift in the make-up of net migration is a rise in EU nationals leaving the UK. This picked up to 139,000, compared to 116,000 in 2016 and 86,000 in 2015.