APPENDIX 9: MEASURING AND PREDICTING IMMIGRATION
FROM EASTERN EUROPE
A study[83]
commissioned by the Home Office before EU enlargement in May 2004
predicted that enlargement would lead to an average annual net
immigration of 5,000-13,000 A8 nationals for the period up to
2010. According to ONS data, annual net immigration of A8 nationals
during 2005-06 was 66,000, more than four times higher than predicted.
It is likely that, in practice, the discrepancy between predicted
and actual net immigration of A8 workers is even higher. ONS data
suggest that the annual gross inflow of A8 immigrants during 2005-06
was 84,000. [84]
In contrast, according to data from the Worker Registration Scheme
(WRS) that was set up in May 2004, the average annual number of
A8 workers registering for employment during 2005-06 was 216,000,
almost three times the ONS figure (which excludes immigrants who
say that they intend to stay for less than 12 months when they
arrive in the UK).[85]
In total, more than 765,000 A8 workers—of whom
two thirds are from Poland—have registered for employment
in the UK since gaining free access to the UK's labour market
when their countries joined the EU in May 2004. Although the WRS
data include short and long term migrant workers, they underestimate
the total inflow of A8 workers as a number of groups are exempted
from the registration requirement, most notably self-employed
persons and students (some of whom will take up part-time employment).
The WRS figures also exclude A8 nationals who choose not to register
and those who do not take up employment (in which case there is
no registration requirement).
Professor Christian Dustmann, one of the authors
of the study commissioned by the Home Office, pointed out that
the predictions were based on two important limitations which
partly explain the discrepancy with the actual level of net immigration
of A8 nationals since May 2004. First, due to a lack of historical
data on immigration from A8 countries to the UK, the predictions
for post-enlargement immigration from the A8 countries came from
a model whose parameters had to be estimated using historical
data for a different set of countries. Second, the estimate assumed
that all 15 member states of the pre-enlarged EU would open their
labour markets to workers from the new EU member states at the
same time. In the end, only three countries granted A8 workers
the unrestricted right to work in May 2004 (the UK, Ireland and
Sweden), which boosted the number of A8 workers that came to the
UK. Professor Dustmann said he was "absolutely sure
that if Germany had opened its labour market to the accession
countries we would have seen lower inflows to the UK" (Q 179).
83 Dustmann et al. (2003) The impact of EU enlargement
on migration flows, Home Office Online Report 25/03 Back
84
ONS, Total International Migration (TIM) tables, 1991-2006 Back
85
Home Office 2008, Accession Monitoring Report, May 2004-December
2007 Back
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