Number of people leaving UK hits record high
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The number of people leaving the country hit a record high last
year - driven by Eastern European workers returning home, figures
revealed today.
But the number of new arrivals rose, with more than half-a-million
people coming in, official statistics showed.
Arrivals from Eastern Europe were down by nearly a quarter in the
year to March as job prospects were hit by the recession.
More recent figures suggested immigrants from the eight countries
which joined the EU in 2004 registering for work fell even more
dramatically this year. In the year to September the total was down
41% to 106,000.
Overall, migration both in and out added 163,000 to the population
last year. Some 590,000 immigrants came in - a figure that has
barely changed since 2004 - and 427,000 left.
The number of non-Britons leaving the country has risen by 50% from
169,000 in 2007 to 255,000 last year.
Home Office minister Phil Woolas said the figures showed immigrants
were coming to the UK to work and then returning home.
He said: "Our new flexible, points-based system gives us greater
control over those coming to work or study from outside Europe,
ensuring that only those that Britain need can come."
But the Tories called for an annual limit on the number of non-EU
workers allowed into the country.
Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said: "To make the
points-based system effective in cutting immigration to sensible
levels, we need to have an annual limit on the numbers coming here,
as well as much more effective measures against those who abuse the
loopholes in, for example, the student visa system."
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