Feared flood of Bulgarian and Romanian workers failed to materialise

Nigel Williams, 15 May 2014

The number of Bulgarian and Romanian workers in the UK fell in the first quarter after transitional restrictions were lifted at New Year 2014. For whatever reason, the feared flood of migrants has failed to materialise.

What might the reason be?

Sampling error?

The estimate comes from the Labour Force Survey. That’s a pretty big and reputable survey, in which each person taking part represents about 400 others. The hope is that the sample will be in the same proportions as the population but there is a chance that sampling will choose randomly more or fewer people from accession countries. The figure for Q1 2014 means that about 8 fewer people gave their country of birth as Romania or Bulgaria compared to 3 months before. Only a fraction of the sample is renewed each quarter. A person’s country of birth changes only exceptionally between quarters, so the Labour Force Survey is mostly comparing new respondents with the people dropping out at the end of their service. ONS publish margins of error for particular results, giving some idea of variability.

For example, the number of non-UK-born people in employment is quoted within an interval of approximately 2.5% either side. For small subsamples, the estimate must be less accurate still. It is possible that the fall in numbers of working Bulgarians and Romanians results from exceptional effects of sampling. It is equally possible that the fall was actually much greater.

People arriving sooner?

Numbers of Bulgarians and Romanians working in the UK grew in 2013, while the transitional arrangments were still in place. The greatest increase was between Q1 and Q2. It would be stretching a point to suspect that people eligible for entry under those arrangements chose to migrate in large numbers ahead of their less entitled compatriots. Before Polish accession in May 2004, there were some quarters showing increases, though much less than the subsequent growth, which began immediately.

People arrived but not to work?

The Labour Market Statistics publishes two sets of estimates relevant to this question. They give the employment level for all 16 or over and the employment rate for those 16 to 64. With the extra assumption that the number of migrant workers over 65 has not changed materially, it is possible to derive an estimate for the number unemployed that were born in the accession countries. These estimates also have risen in the last year but not in the quarter since restrictions were lifted.

Naturalisation?

After five years or as a result of marriage, people can become eligible for naturalisation. If they take this option, which is more common among non-EU migrants, then they can count with the native British in some statistical classifications. In this case, the fall in Romanian and Bulgarian workers occurred both in terms of citizenship and country of birth.

Rule-Changes deterred benefit tourists?

Shortly before the lifting of transitional restrictions, the UK government passed some new regulations. Jonathan Lindsell assessed them in detail here.

He describes them as ‘all bark and no bite’, suggesting they would make little difference to the entititlements of migrants. These rule changes apply to to all EU migrants,  not just to Bulgaria and Romania. Other East European countries show a small decline in the number without work but a record increase in the number in employment. Subject to sampling variation, the number of workers born in the eight accession countries of 2004 rose by 75,000 between the last quarter of 2013 and the first of 2014. The effect of the rule-changes appears to have been on Bulgarians and Romanians alone.

People were put off coming or chose to return?

This is the least palatable explanation in terms of national prestige. Rather than invest their savings on the prospect of a zero-hours job, a rough-sleeping pitch, record rainfall and an atmosphere of antagonism, people preferred to stay where they were or chose another European country.

Spain is more popular with Romanians, where the population numbers approximately 800,000. They are top of the league table there, ahead of Morocco, Britain, with approximately 300,000 ex-pats in Spain, Ecuador and China. Even in Spain, the Romanian population has declined, as people have decided their job prospects are better in Romania.

If all that matters is to lower the UK population, then the policy and the public relations have been a success. There will be less competition for some low-paid jobs, less overcrowding in the London housing market, less need to provide extra school places in future. All are areas of general concern even before the end of the transitional controls. It is been easy to mistake the situation of Bulgarian and Romanian migrants as causing the whole problem rather than contributing to an existing difficulty. The method of acting like the Nasty Country, as László Andor put it, has the effect of antagonising all 29,000,000 population, and not just those few that might eventually draw benefits from the UK. The Sofia news agency Novonite listed some recent causes of offence: Alessandra Mussolini on Romanians and crime; Geert Wilders’ campaign against their EU membership; Turkish textbooks depicting Bulgaria as still part of Turkey, for which a minister apologised. Beating them all was the campaign suggesting the whole population wished to enter the UK.

The Romanian economy is not huge but it is still in the top 50 destinations for UK exports. In UK General Trade exports, sales to Romania grew from Q4 2013 to Q1 2014 but were lower than the corresponding figures a year earlier.

Any worry that Romanian migrants compete for British jobs needs to be tempered with an awareness that exports to Romania also fund some British jobs. In deterring benefit tourists, the cure may prove worse than the disease.