East European workers continue to leave Britain

The number of Eastern Europeans leaving Britain doubled in the year up to the end of September, 2008, coinciding with the first signs of the banking crisis and looming recession, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said Wednesday. The ONS said that 265,000 National Insurance numbers were issued to workers from the eight East European member countries up to September, 2008, which represent a fall of 71,000 compared with the previous year.
Over the same period, the government recorded 180,000 Eastern Europeans joining the Worker Registration Scheme, a means of counting their presence in Britain. That figure was down from 223,000 registrations between September 2006 and September 2008. The most recent provisional figures show that registrations are continuing to fall, said the ONS.