“But there are other dimensions of Ireland’s openness that are no less significant. One … is the elasticity of its labour supply: the capacity for its labour force to be augmented by immigration and depleted by emigration.”
So says the National Recovery Plan for Ireland &, according to a comment on the radio, buried in the small print is an assumption that an extra 100,000 migrants will leave.
This could be more bad news for the Cameron government if, as is likely, a large proportion head for the UK (migration always falls off with distance). Statistics released this morning show that in 2009 UK net immigration – which the government has set itself to reduce – rose by 35,000 to 198,000 compared with 163,000 the year before.
The difference is put down mainly to a fall-off in the number of British citizens moving abroad. In fact the total numbers of both immigrants & emigrants fell, by 23,000 & 59,000 respectively, when officially we would prefer it to be the other way round.
There is nothing the government can do directly to control these migration flows, except for those coming from outside the EU area. But trying to control the difference between two very large numbers – or even to estimate reliably what it is, never mind forecasting what it will be – is always hazardous.
Ask Denis Healey about the estimates of the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement which prompted the IMF to descend on Britain in 1976.
