The number of immigrants settling in Great Britain broke a record last year: according to data from the British Office of Statistics (ONS).
In 2022, 1.16 million people moved to Great Britain from abroad, while 557,000 left for permanent emigration
– writes MTI.
The Office for National Statistics also showed that 151,000 new immigrants came from the European Union, while 202,000 EU citizens left, so the number of EU citizens living in Great Britain decreased by a net 51,000 last year.
Most of them, 925 thousand, came from countries outside the European Union, mainly for work. According to the report, the number of people moving to Great Britain from a non-EU area increased by 287,000 in one year.
Great Britain left the European Union on January 31, 2020, and the government has since introduced a new points-based immigration system, and their efforts include reducing immigration.
British Home Secretary Sowella Braverman recently called on British companies to try to provide training for British workers in professions where jobs can currently only be filled by foreigners due to chronic labor shortages. At the same time, British professional organizations have long warned the government that the main cause of the labor shortage is the ongoing migration of EU workers due to Brexit.
A new rule was also announced that day, from January 2024 students continuing their studies in the UK will not be able to bring their families with them. Because recently, the number of relatives arriving with students, and therefore the number of immigrants arriving in the country, has increased several times.
According to the latest statistics of the Ministry of the Interior in London, which were presented on Thursday, the British authorities had received 7.22 million settlement requests by the end of the first quarter of this year. At the top of the list are Romanian nationals who have submitted 1.48 million applications, and 174,910 Hungarians living in Great Britain have applied for settled status from the UK Home Office by the end of March.
