Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

TestingBrexitCoronavirusLatest NewsHospitality

Number of overseas nationals leaving UK could have reached 1.3 million

by Ashleigh Webber 15 Jan 2021
by Ashleigh Webber 15 Jan 2021 Christian Mueller / Shutterstock.com
Christian Mueller / Shutterstock.com

Up to 1.3 million overseas nationals have left the UK over the past year, with almost 700,000 non-UK born workers having vacated London alone, according to a study.

The Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence found an “unprecedented” fall in the number of foreign-born residents in the UK when it applied an ‘adjustment factor’ to Labour Force Survey statistics.

Migrant workers

Migrant workers will be critical to the UK’s economic rebirth

Change to visa concessions may have scuppered new year hiring

Its estimates relate to the change in the population between July- September 2019 to July-September 2020. The Office for National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey, however, estimates that 893,000 non-UK residents have left the UK.

ESCoE says the exodus of overseas workers could likely be explained by the impact the pandemic and the resulting economic crisis have had on the sectors they work in.

Its Estimating the UK Population During the Pandemic Report says: “Migrants, especially from Europe, are disproportionately likely to be employed in the hospitality sector, and other service sectors that require face-to-face contact, so are more likely to have been furloughed or lose their jobs.

“With many universities moving wholly or largely to online teaching, many foreign students may have decided not to come to the UK or to return here. But most of all, the UK has (alongside a few other western European countries such as Spain and Italy), performed relatively badly in both economic and health terms during the first wave of the pandemic.”

It says many migrants will have been faced with a choice: stay in the UK with no job, less or no pay, and pay for relatively expensive accommodation; or return home to family, with lower costs and “most likely less risk of catching Covid”.

“It seems that much of the burden of job losses during the pandemic has fallen on non-UK workers and has manifested itself in return migration, rather than unemployment. This is in itself an important insight, and, alongside the furlough and other business support schemes, helps explain why, despite the very large and continuing hit to GDP and output, unemployment has not as yet soared to the levels some predicted,” it says.

ESCoE’s estimates show that inner London (-336,635), outer London (-332,121) and the West Midlands (-253,512), saw the greatest reduction in the number of non-UK born residents between 2019 and 2020. The ONS, however, predicts mass migration out of the UK was most prevalent in the West Midlands (-224,486).

  Workforce planning opportunities on Personnel Today

Browse more workforce planning jobs

Ashleigh Webber
Ashleigh Webber

Ashleigh is editor of OHW+ and HR and wellbeing editor at Personnel Today. Ashleigh's areas of interest include employee health and wellbeing, equality and inclusion and skills development. She has hosted many webinars for Personnel Today, on topics including employee retention, financial wellbeing and menopause support. Prior to joining Personnel Today in 2018, she covered the road transport sector for Commercial Motor and Motor Transport magazines, touching on some of the employment and wellbeing issues experienced by those in road haulage.

previous post
Equal pay: Tesco ordered to disclose warehouse staff pay information
next post
Remote working job adverts trebled in a year

3 comments

Avatar
C Woods 28 Apr 2021 - 2:58 am

My family and I decided to leave the UK last year, mainly because Brexit put a strain onto our relationship with the country. My family being my husband who is a British/Irish Londoner, my British/German children and me being German.
I am a Newly Qualified Teacher and finished my training in London last summer. My status was settled.
Last July/August I have met at least six other young families just on our local playground in Peckham alone who were not low income workers (i.e. doctors, accountants and designers) and left the country for places like France, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Germany because of Brexit rather than Covid.
I believe that a lot of people were forced to leave the UK during the pandemic because of the pandemic. But I like to question how much the migration numbers also connect to the ‘real’ Brexit approaching. It felt like there was an urge for me, and the other well established families there, to leave the UK before the 31.12.2020.

Reply
Avatar
Christopher Sattaur 29 Apr 2021 - 1:00 am

I’m sorry to hear that you’re leaving the UK. Brexit was not aimed against Europeans but mainly towards the corrupt EU. Remainers who wanted the country to stay and be controlled by a outdated and unelected EU want change. Brexiters have been lied to by Remainers. I know of many German, Italian, French, etc, who remain in the UK, with Greek and Spanish arriving to work within the last year, all knowing that the UK will be out of the EU. A growing and large number of Europeans want to leave too.

Reply

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

You may also like

Construction: immigration rule relaxation will have little effect

16 Mar 2023

UK more attractive to highly qualified workers

10 Mar 2023

Government considers annual health checks and OH subsidies

6 Mar 2023

Western Australia sets sights on UK police and...

3 Mar 2023

How changes of ownership can affect sponsor licences

24 Feb 2023

Crackdown on illegal migrant workers gathers pace

17 Feb 2023

Three years on, how has Brexit impacted the...

8 Feb 2023

Immigration options for companies expanding into the UK

31 Jan 2023

Ministers may extend foreign students’ working hours

27 Jan 2023

Home Office graduate visa plan could deter skills

26 Jan 2023

  • Neurodiversity: How to make the workplace more inclusive (webinar) WEBINAR | Can your organisation truly be inclusive...Read more
  • How HR can facilitate internal talent mobility PROMOTED | Should internal talent mobility be a priority...Read more
  • Bereavement in the workplace: How training can help HR get it right PROMOTED | HR professionals play an essential role...Read more
  • UK workforce mental wellbeing needs PROMOTED | The mental wellbeing support employers are providing misses the mark...Read more
  • The Workplace Today Guide: Why it pays to support your staff’s financial health PROMOTED | The cost of living crisis has hit...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2023

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2023 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+