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    Emigration increasing, says CSO

    By Noreen Bowden | August 20, 2008

    Emigration increased slightly in the year ending April 2008, with 45,300 people leaving Ireland.

    The figure is the highest since 1990, when 56,300 people left the country, but there are a couple of factors making a difference between then and now.

    First, it is likely that there are number of immigrants who had been temporarily in the country who are now returning home or moving on to a third country. The CSO statistics do not reveal nationality of those leaving, but 9,000 are moving on to the accession countries of the EU, while 7,400 are moving on to other parts of continental Europe.

    Second, immigration continues to outpace emigration, as it has been doing consistently since 1996. There were 83,300 people who came into Ireland last year; while this is a four-year low and a fairly dramatic decrease from the 109,500 who came in the year ending April 2007, net migration is still significantly inward.

    The figure for net migration now stands at 38.5 – although this is nearly half its peak of 71,800 in 2006, it’s still a far cry from the situation twenty years ago. 1988 was one of the peak years for emigration – at that time, net migration stood at -41.9.

    The trends, however, are toward increasing emigration and decreasing immigration. The figures also date to April, and as such wouldn’t show any acceleration in emigration that may or may not have occurred this summer.

    Where are the outward migrants going?

    • 7,000 went to the UK, down from 10,100 in the year ending 2007.
    • 7,400 went to the pre-accession countries of continental Europe, up from 3,200 the year before.
    • 9,000 went to the 12 countries of the EU accession states, up from 7,000 last year.
    • 2,200 are reported to have gone to the US, down from 2,900.
    • 19,800 went to the “Rest of the World”, with 11,300 of those going to Australia and Oceania.

    The CSO also released statistics today showing that the unemployment rate has risen to 5.1%. There are now 115,000 people unemployed.

    Topics: Australia, Latest News, UK, US | 2 Comments »

    2 Responses to “Emigration increasing, says CSO”

    1. Michael Cussen Says:
      August 26th, 2009 at 8:19 am

      Hi,
      I’m trying to gather some statistics about emigration for some essays that I hope to have published about unemployment. I note that in the year up to April 2008 45,300 people left Ireland. Do you have a statistic of emigration and immigration to Ireland for the year up to August (or July) 2009?
      Any help will be greatly appreciated. thanks. – M. Cussen

    2. Noreen Bowden Says:
      August 27th, 2009 at 6:15 am

      Ah, we’re still waiting for those emigration statistics to be released. We’re dependent on the CSO’s annual figures – anything else we’ve got is anecdotal. They should be coming out any day now, but they will presumably be for the year ending April 2009, as the CSO’s figures have a lag time. You might try contacting them through their website at CSO.ie and see when they’ll be coming out with them, but it’s usually in August.