LONDON: The latest Office for National Statistics figures on net migration to the UK were released. In the year to June 2015, the country set a new record — at least since 1970 — with 330,000 more people migrating to the UK than leaving. Champagne all round!
What’s often missed is the National Insurance number figures also released by the Department for Work & Pensions at the same time. Those figures tell you the number of adults from overseas who were given permission to work.
The migration figures from the ONS show 636,000 people coming into the UK over the year. But the NINo figures show an amazing 917,000 people who were registered in the same period of time. Because of the way the DWP calculations have changed, that’s likely to be an overestimate — see below for more detail — but unlike the ONS figures, it only covers adults.
The breakdown shows that half of the 917,000 adult overseas workers registered come from just five countries, all of which are in the European Union. Here’s the breakdown:
