At the end of August 2017, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released its most recent (Q1 2017) figures on net migration, revealing that it had dropped to a three-year low. According to the ONS figures, estimated net migration – the difference between immigration and emigration – dropped to +246,000 in the year to March 2017, down 81,000 compared with the year before and the lowest it has been since March 2014.

The change was largely attributed to a sharp decrease (-51,000) in net migration from EU citizens. Of concern to employers of low-paid EU workers is the fact that more than 17,000 workers from the EU8 countries - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia - left the UK in the year to March.

Nicola White, head of international migration statistics at the ONS, noted that the figures “indicate that the EU referendum result may be influencing people’s decision to migrate into and out of the UK, particularly EU and EU8 citizens. It is too early to tell if this is an indication of a long-term trend.”

The total number of NHS nurses falls for first time since 2013
Official figures have revealed that the total number of registered nurses has fallen for the first time since 2013. One factor is the uncertainty around Brexit resulting in a ‘significant drop’ in EU applications. The number of nurses from the EU that registered to work in the UK, actually dropped by 96% in less than a year after the Brexit vote official figures show. Last July, 1,304 EU nurses came to work in the UK; this fell to just 46 in April this year, Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) statistics show.