British research shows East European migrants going home (Roundup)

Apr 30, 2008, 13:56 GMT

London - About half of the estimated one million East Europeans who came to work in Britain since EU expansion in 2004 have returned home, a report by a British think-tank said Wednesday.

The research by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) investigated the impact of the influx from the eight countries that joined the European Union in May 2004: Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Most of the migrants came from Poland, but the report also took into account recent migrants from Romania and Bulgaria after their two countries joined in 2007.

It concluded that about half of the estimated one million migrants had returned home, lured by improved economic prospects in their native countries.

The slow-down in the British economy and the falling value of the pound also contributed to the decision to return.

The IPRR concluded that so-called post-enlargement migration was different to previous waves of migration to Britain.

'In contrast to previous migrants, it is financially and logistically possible for migrants from the new EU member states to come to the UK on a temporary or seasonal basis, and to regularly visit home while living in Britain,' it said.

The East European workers, employed chiefly in the building industry, or as plumbers, nannies and fruit pickers, would leave a gap in the labour market that would be hard to fill, analysts said.

Their willingness to accept minimum-salary jobs shunned by Britons, combined with greater work mobility, would leave an impact.

Improved employment prospects in Poland, coinciding with a slowdown in the British economy, and a fall in the value of the pound, were given as main reasons.

'The vast majority of Polish migrants come to the UK for economic reasons, but leave because they miss home or want to be with their friends and family in Poland,' said the report.

Furthermore, as other EU countries were lifting their restrictions on the influx from new member states, workers from eastern Europe were in future more likely to chose destinations in continental Europe, the report suggested.

Britain, Ireland and Sweden were among EU countries which opened their doors to east European migrants immediate after expansion in 2004.

The IPPR report also said the 'pool' of migrant workers was likely to shrink due to declining birth rates in the 1980s.

According to the research, there were 665,000 nationals from all 10 countries living in Britain in the last quarter of 2007.

But already in 2007, the influx had slowed. According to IPPR estimates, the number of east European arrivals fell by 30,000 in the second half of 2007, compared with the same period in 2006.

The British government admitted in 2006 that it was 'in the dark' about the extent of migration from eastern Europe, which it had estimated in 2004 not to exceed 13,000.