2/7/2014: Live Register by Nationality: June 2014 and Q2 2014

In the previous two posts (linked here) I covered top level data on Live Register for June 2014, and the Government "Score Card' comparatives between Q2 2014 and Q1 2011 when the current Coalition came to power. This post covers some details relating to foreign nationals on Live Register.

As of June 2014, there were

• 398,813 people officially on the Live Register (in other words, excluding those who received Live Register supports but were enrolled into State Training Programmes). This marked a decline of 8.39% y/y
• Of the above, 331,463 were Irish Nationals, representing 83.1% of total Live Register counts. Year on year, June 2014 numbers of Irish Nationals on LR is down 8.12% which is less than overall decline in the LR. A year ago, Irish Nationals represented 82.9% of total LR counts. So proportionally, Irish Nationals are now slightly more prevalent on LR than a year ago.
• In June 2014, there were 67,350 non-Irish Nationals on the LR, representing 16.9% of the total LR counts. This represents a decline of 9.73% y/y. A year ago in June 2013, non-Irish Nationals represented 17.1% of the LR.
• 15,034 UK nationals were on LR in Ireland in June 2014, representing a y/y decline of 10.0%, the second sharpest drop of all nationalities groups.
• There were 3,751 EU15 (ex-Ireland & UK) nationals on the LR in June 2014, virtually unchanged (up on 3,750) on June 2013.
• There were 36,772 Accession States (EU-12) nationals on the LR in June, representing a decline of 9.5% y/y. In June 2014, nationals of the Accession States accounted for 9.2% of the total LR counts, down from 9.3% in June 2013. In other words, proportionally, the numbers of Accession States nationals on LR have dropped more significantly than the decline in LR itself. This category posted the third steepest decline in LR numbers.
• Non-EU nationals listed on LR amounted to 11,793 as of June 2014, a decline of 12.8% on June 2013. Proportionally, they accounted for just under 3% of the LR total counts in June 2014, down slightly on just over 3.1% in June 2013. This category posted the overall steepest rate of decline in LR numbers y/y.

Charts to illustrate:

A table below summarises changes in quarterly averages terms for Q2 2014:

This largely confirms the same observations made about June 2014 figures.

7/3/2014: How are cohorts of immigrants changing?.. 2002-2012 data

This week, CSO published 2012 data on PPSN numbers and employment status of immigrants. The data is telling, makes for uncomfortable reading, and you can explore all the details here: http://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/fnaes/foreignnationalsppsnallocationsemploymentandsocialwelfareactivity2012/#.UxhZ6PTV9bs

Not to run repeats of the CSO own analysis (which is excellent), here are couple of my own insights:

Chart below shows all foreign individuals age 15+ that are either in employment or in social welfare activity, irrespective of their entry year. To strip out any possible y/y volatility, I took averages roughly corresponding to the following periods:
1) Period prior to EU Accession of EU15-25 states (2002-2004)
2) Period of the pre-crisis bubble following Accession (2005-2008) and
3) Period since the onset of the crisis (2009-2012).

I then computed share of each 'nationality' in activity as percent of the total number of nationals of this group in the country at the time.

To control for effects of the overall employment trends, I then took difference for each nationality percentage in activity to the total foreign population percentage in activity.

The result is plotted in the chart.

Arrows in the chart above show overall changes in relative activity in each group/'nationality' over the three periods, relative to overall foreign population activity rates.

For example, EU15 ex Irish and UK nationals group data shows that in 2002-2004, this group was 19.1 percentage points less likely to have been employed or have social welfare activity compared to the all foreign nationals. By 2005-2008 period this number fell to 2.7 percentage points. Over 2009-2012 this group was 8.2 percentage points more likely to have registered employment or social welfare activity than the overall foreign nationals population.

What does this show?

- Across all cohorts (by date of entry), most active engagement in 2002-2012 has been associated with the nationals of EU15-EU25 states.
- Between 2002 and 2012, the largest increase in engagement took place amongst the EU-15 ex-Irish and UK nationals
- Non-2004 Accession EU states (EU25-EU27) had a massive deterioration in activity between 2002 and 2012.
- There was also deterioration in activity for 'Other', although 2009-2012 average is -1.2, which is not far away from the average.
- Americans consistently ranked the worst in terms of overall low activity in all periods.

For a second exercise, I took same year as entry performance for each entry cohort and then once again took difference to the total. Chart below shows the results.

As measured by activity rates, only one cohort showed significant improvement over time: EU15 ex-Irish and UK nationals. Marked deterioration in quality of cohorts (by year of entry) over time is recorded for EU25-EU27 group, UK and 'Other'.

There are many caveats to interpreting the data, so the above should not be deemed reflective of some real values and qualities. When I say 'quality' in the context of data, I simply reference the extent of engagement. Not actual quality of human capital or work performance etc.

My concern, however, is that we are seeing rather predictable, steady deterioration in activity rates for all groups of foreigners, excluding EU15 ex-Irish and UK nationals.

Chart below summarises.

20/07/2011: Foreign Nationals & Foreign-born population in EU27

Eurostat published new statistics on foreign-born and non-national populations across the EU for 2010 (see Statistics in Focus, 34/2011, "6.5% of the EU population are foreigners and 9.4% are born abroad").

In 2010, there were 32.5 million foreign citizens living in the EU27 Member States, of which 12.3 million were citizens of another EU27 Member State and the remaining 20.2 million were citizens of countries outside the EU27.

Foreign citizens accounted for 6.5% of the total EU27 population.

On average in 2010, foreign citizens living in the EU27 were significantly younger than the population of nationals (median age 34.4 years compared with 41.5 years).

Among the EU27 Member States, the highest percentage of foreign citizens in the population was observed in Luxembourg (43% of the total population), followed by Latvia (17%), Estonia and Cyprus (both 16%).
High proportion of foreign citizens in Latvia and Estonia is due to a bizarre situation where large numbers of residents of these countries have no official citizenship due to discriminatory (in my view) practices against people of non-Latvian and Estonian ethnicity. As Eurostat notes: “In the case of Latvia and Estonia, the proportion of non-EU foreign citizens is particularly large due to the high number of ‘recognised non-citizens’, mainly former Soviet Union citizens, who are permanently resident in these countries but have not acquired Latvian/Estonian citizenship or any other citizenship. The foreign-born would include people who were born in other parts of the former Soviet Union." It is worth noting that many of these 'non-citizens' have resided in these countries all their lives and many were actually born inside the borders of these countries. Despite this, the EU largely overlooks the issue of their rights within Latvia and Estonia, even though outside these countries, they are accorded the same rights as EU nationals.

The percentage of foreign citizens was less than 2% in Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia.

In terms of citizenship, nearly 40% of the EU foreign population were citizens of another EU27 Member State, with the highest shares in Luxembourg (86% of the foreign population), Ireland (80%), Belgium (68%), Cyprus (66%), Slovakia (62%) and Hungary (59%). A third of the foreign-born population were born in another EU27 Member State.

Since citizenship can change over time, it is interesting to complement this information with data on the foreign-born population. They include foreign citizens who have acquired the citizenship of the country of residence, but who were born abroad, plus nationals born abroad (for example in the territory of a former colony) or nationals born in a part of a state which, due to dissolution or border changes, no longer belongs to the same country.

The number of foreign-born people exceeded the number of foreign citizens in all Member States, except in Luxembourg, Latvia and the Czech Republic.

In 2010, there were 47.3 million foreign-born people living in the EU27, with 16.0 million born in another EU27 Member State and 31.4 million born in a country outside the EU27. In total, foreign-born people accounted for 9.4% of the total population of the EU27.

Data on the place of birth of the foreign-born population show that one third of foreign-born people living in the EU27 were born in another EU27 Member State, with proportions above 50% being observed in Luxembourg (83% of total foreign-born), Ireland (77%) and Hungary (67%).