Net migration from the EU to the UK has fallen below 100,000 for the first time in almost five years, figures revealed on Thursday.
Figures, for the year ending September 2017, showed that 90,000 migrants entered the UK, the lowest number since March 2013.
Overall net long-term migration – the balance between the number of people arriving and leaving – was estimated at 244,000 in the year to September.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the measure was now at a similar level to early 2014 and follows record levels of net migration during 2015 and early 2016.
EU net migration has fallen over the last year, as fewer EU citizens are coming to the UK and the number leaving the UK increased, according to the ONS.
However, there are still more EU nationals coming to the UK than leaving, statisticians added.
Nicola White, ONS head of international migration statistics, said the figures show that non-EU net migration is now larger than EU net migration.
She added: “However, migration of both non-EU and EU citizens are still adding to the UK population.
“Brexit could well be a factor in people’s decision to move to or from the UK, but people’s decision to migrate is complicated and can be influenced by lots of different reasons.”
Commenting on the figures, Jonathan Portes, senior fellow at The UK in a Changing Europe said after the Brexit vote the UK has become “significantly less attractive” to European migrants, both economic and psychological reasons, and is likely to be one of the factors explaining the UK’s growth slowdown relative to the rest of Europe and the world.”.
Portes, who is also a professor of Economic and Public Policy at King’s College London, added that falls in EU migration are already “adversely affecting some sectors”, like the NHS, where they have “aggravated existing staff shortages”.
“The reduced availability of EU workers also appears to be interacting with the UK’s absurd quota system for highly skilled migrants from outside the EU, which in turn means that we are denying visas for desperately needed specialist doctors from outside the EU. This illustrates, yet again, the inevitable unintended consequences of the government’s determination to centrally plan the UK labour market.”
Portes lamented that despite the obvious impacts of Brexit, the public “still know little or nothing about the future of the UK immigration system after Brexit”.
“It is long past time the government dropped the economically illiterate net migration target and its accompanying caps and quotas, which have damaged both the UK economy and confidence in the immigration system, and replaced it with a more liberal and market-driven system,” he said.
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