Net migration may be slightly lower than expected, but it is still much higher than the UK government estimates. Over the years, successive Conservative governments have targeted a maximum addition of 100,000 immigrants per year. Current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also thinks the figure is too high. Migration was also an important theme during the 2016 Brexit referendum.
According to the opposition Labor Party, the government has no plans and no control over immigration. However, according to Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, the government remains committed to reducing migration to “sustainable levels”. He also stressed that although the figure was “too high” throughout the year, migration numbers started to decline in the second half of the year.
Employers in the UK want to see immigrants coming, because there is a large demand for workers and employees. In some sectors, more than 90 percent of applicants reportedly come from abroad. There was an acute shortage of specialist skills in the UK itself, he said.
This posed a major dilemma for the British government: reducing the number of immigrants at a time of severe labor shortages. With parliamentary elections approaching (possibly in the fall of 2024), the link between the two will certainly become an election issue.
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