According to official figures published on May 22 by the British home office, 7935 Bulgarians and Romanians went to work in the UK between January 1 and the end of March. Of the total 10 418 who applied for work on the island, 2660 registered as self-employed, and 200 as “self-sufficient”. A further 2400 are low-skilled workers granted temporary work permits through the existing seasonal agricultural workers’ scheme. Six out of every 10 applications came from Romanians.
The figures are visibly much lower than pressure group Migrationwatch UK, as well as British tabloids, threatened prior to Bulgaria and Romania joining the EU. They predicted 300 000 migrants would “flood in” in the first 18 months. The Guardian reported that the figure of 8000 was more in line with the estimate by the Institute for Public Policy Research that 56 000 people would go to Britain induring the first year after EU accession.
The above figures tie in with a story by the BBC from May 28. It reported that the National Farmers Union (NFU) warned much of this summer’s British strawberry crop may be left to rot in the fields due to a shortage of migrant pickers. The NFU’s chief horticultural advisor Philip Hudson said that about 13 growers of soft fruit and salad vegetables were facing a 2400 shortfall of workers of the 4400 needed. The union blamed the shortfall on rising standards of living in Poland (the country with most registered migrant workers since 2004) and other Eastern European countries. The NFU said the rising living standards made workers in those countries less keen to come to the UK. A migration expert from the Public Policy Research also said that the “dramatic fall” in the number of migrants from Eastern European countries is caused by the constantly improving economies of those countries.
Research implemented by Oxford and Sussex universities for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, published by the BBC on May 27, revealed that more than a third of women and a quarter of men who had come to Britain said they wanted to stay and work in the UK. Many of those interviewed had changed their minds about staying since arriving in the UK.
The study was based on interviews done in 2002 as well as after the EU enlargement in May 2004 and included 600 migrants from Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Ukraine and Bulgaria. Construction workers, farm labourers and au pairs were among those interviewed about their lifestyles. When they first arrived, six per cent of those surveyed in October 2002 said they would stay in the UK. Eighteen months later, of those who remained in the UK, nearly a quarter said they would stay permanently. By the end of 2004, 29 per cent of Eastern European migrants said they would stay “for good”.
When the figures came out, UK immigration minister Liam Byrne said: “While it remains too soon to evaluate the full impact of the accession of Bulgaria and Romania, the early indications are that our policy of restricting access to the UK’s labour market is helping to ensure that only those who have something to offer the UK are allowed to work here.”
However, Sir Andrew Green, chairman of pressure group Migrationwatch UK, said the figures on the two new countries did not tell the whole story, “This is not a huge number - but there could be others [who have not been counted] because the system is flawed.” the BBC reported.
The figures revealed by the British Home Office of course provoked reactions from one of Britain’s favourite conservative newspapers, the Daily Mail. A headline on the subject on May 23 read “120 immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria arrive in Britain every day to be circus stars.” The paper predicts that 40 000 more workers from the two countries are expected to come to the UK by the end of the year. But given how wrong the prediction of 300 000 workers in the first 18 months after Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU is looking, at this stage it is unlikely 40 000 people will arrive during the next seven months.
