Press Releases

ONS Population Projections
1 February, 2012

Today, the ONS released further population projections based on varying net migration estimates.

Commenting, Sir Andrew Green said:

"These latest official projections underline the huge importance of the government keeping to its promise to get net migration down below 100,000. Even at 100,000 these figures show that our population will reach 70 million in less than 25 years with all the consequences that has for our overcrowded island."

Youth Unemployment and Immigration: More than a Coincidence Says Report
9 January, 2012

A new report has highlighted the ‘remarkable coincidence’ between the rise in youth unemployment in the UK and the huge surge in immigration from Eastern Europe over the last eight years.

The report by think-tank Migration Watch UK shows that there is an apparent correlation between this surge and the surge in UK youth unemployment that followed.

Between the first quarter of 2004 and the third quarter of 2011, employment of workers born in the so called A8 countries increased by over 600,000. Over the same period the number of unemployed young people in the UK almost doubled, from 575,000 to just over a million.

‘As our report makes clear, measuring the effect of the recent unprecedented immigration levels on youth unemployment is not an exact science - and many attempts to do so have been criticised,’ said Sir Andrew Green, Migration Watch chairman.

‘Correlation is not causation but when the two statistics are placed side by side most objective people would consider it a very remarkable coincidence if there was no link at all between them, especially as migrants from the A8 have tended to be disproportionately young, well-educated, prepared to work for low wages and imbued with a strong work ethic,’ he said.

Such studies as have been undertaken have had greater success with gauging the impact on wage levels of migration into the UK, which – for the lowest 15 per cent of earners – have been adversely impacted.

The accession of eight former Soviet-bloc countries in Eastern Europe – the A8 - to the European Union from May 2004, led to a very substantial migration from these countries to the UK. Around 1.6 million workers from the A8 came to the UK during the seven year transition period and the number of people from these countries working in the UK increased by 600,000. The impact on the UK labour market has been significant – for example, in 2006-07 alone almost 223,000 Polish migrants registered in the UK to work. However, a study by the NIESR in April 2011 of the economic impact of this EU enlargement found that “the long run impact on [UK] GDP per capita can be expected to be negligible”

Sir Andrew said that while the economic downturn has undoubtedly had a major impact on youth unemployment the fact that so many migrants have found work in such difficult employment conditions demonstrates that there are jobs there to be had - although large numbers of them are going to foreign born workers.

Said Sir Andrew: ‘It is implausible and counter-intuitive to suggest – as the previous Government and some economists have done - that A8 migration has had virtually no impact on UK youth unemployment in this period.

‘Accurate estimation of the size of the impact is beset with problems of statistical ‘noise’ and more research is needed to assess the true scale of the impact.  We hear a great deal from employers about the value of immigrant labour, especially from Eastern Europe, but there are also costs some of which have undoubtedly fallen on young British born workers’, he said.

Press Articles

What do the public really think about immigration?

By Sir Andrew Green
Chairman of Migration Watch UK
Conservativehome
7 Janurary, 2012

The immigration industry is in a corner.  The government are proceeding with wide-ranging reform of the immigration system supported by very strong public opinion.  Special interest groups are fighting rear guard actions, often based on misrepresentation of government policy. Otherwise, there is nobody arguing against the need to reduce net immigration.  Even Labour’s spokesman on immigration, Chris Bryant, was obliged to admit in Parliament that “yes of course we think that immigration has been too high and that it should be lower”.

Perhaps that is why some on the left are seeking to suggest that public opinion is not what it seems to be. The IPPR, the Migrants' Rights Network and others, have latched onto a paper produced by the Migration Observatory entitled “Thinking behind the numbers – understanding public opinion on immigration in Britain”.  And guess what... the BBC News website lapped it up too.

To read the full article click here.