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International Migration Outlook 2008

image of International Migration Outlook 2008

This edition focuses on the employment situation of immigrants. For the first time, this report presents a “scoreboard” of labour-market integration of immigrants, as well as an analysis of wage differentials between immigrants and the native-born.



The publication also examines the new laws governing immigrants’ entry, stay and access to the labour market. The selective recruitment of immigrants according to labour market needs is described, as are measures to facilitate the integration of immigrants. International cooperation to improve border control and to combat irregular migration is analysed in detail.



Two special chapters analyse topical issues. The first addresses the management of migration of lower-skilled workers and reviews the different types of existing temporary and permanent programmes. Special attention is devoted to the issue of illegal employment of  foreigners and to regularisation programmes.  The second chapter presents an in-depth study of return migration and looks at its impact on the economic development of sending countries.



A dynamic link (StatLink) is provided for each table and graph. It directs the user to a web page where the corresponding data are available in Excel® format.





 

English Also available in: French, Spanish

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom remains an important destination country for international migration flows as well as experiencing high levels of emigration by its own citizens. In 2006, the estimated number of people arriving to live in the UK for at least a year was 591 000, with an estimated 400 000 people leaving the UK giving a net gain of 191 000. There was a net gain of 71 000 citizens from the Eastern Europe states which joined the EU on 1 May 2004 (A8). The inflows of workers from the A8 countries, which were granted access to the UK labour market, have remained fairly steady since accession. 218 000 citizens of these countries registered under the Worker Registration Scheme between June 2006 and June 2007, in keeping with the annual average for the previous two years. More than two-thirds of these were Poles, with Lithuanians and Slovaks the next largest groups. Indeed, Poles are now the largest group of foreign citizens, with 406 000 (292 000 working) in 2007. The total number of A8 citizens was 587 000, of whom 409 000 were working, a much higher proportion than among the native-born.

English Also available in: French

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