The United Nations Regional Information Centre for Western Europe (UNRIC) has recently revealed that European Union Member States witnessed the issuance of nearly 3.7 million new residence permits last year, excluding the notable influx from Ukraine.
Such figures increased from the 2.9 million permits issued in 2021 and the three million in 2019. At the same time, there was also a surge in new asylum applications, totalling 875,000, a 52 per cent rise compared to 2022 and a 38 per cent increase from 2019.
EU Registered 5.3% Of Non-EU Citizens in 2022
As of January 1, 2022, the EU hosted a population of 23.8 million non-EU citizens, constituting 5.3 per cent of 447 million inhabitants within the 27-nation bloc. As the UNRIC data shows, three-quarters of this non-EU demographic was distributed across key nations, with Germany, Spain, France, and Italy emerging as primary residence hubs.
If people with EU citizenship are included, there are now 38 million people born outside the EU living in it, or 8.5 per cent of the population.
Considering the inclusion of EU citizens, who frequently migrate within the bloc, the proportion of foreign nationals in the EU climbs to 12.5 per cent. As a result, Switzerland leads with 30.2 per cent non-nationals, followed by Australia (29.2 per cent), Iceland (20.1 per cent), Norway (16.1 per cent), and the United States (13.5 per cent).
As of November 27, 2023, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has documented 264,000 irregular entries into the EU through land or sea routes, marking an increase from the nearly 190,000 recorded in 2022 and 150,000 in 2021.
According to UNRIC, in 2021, the EU Commission reported 2.26 million people migrating to the EU from other continents. In this regard, the outbound migration from the EU in 2021 reached 2.5 million people, either relocating to destinations outside the EU (1.12 million) or changing countries within the EU’s borders (1.4 million).
Furthermore, within the EU, 13.7 million people are EU citizens living in a member state other than their own. Luxembourg stands out with the highest proportion of non-nationals in its population at 47.1 per cent, along with the largest share of migrants from other European countries, accounting for 91 per cent of the total in 2021.
Further data provided by UNRIC also show that the EU Commission estimates that without inward migration flows, the EU’s population would have declined by 500,000 in 2019 due to a combination of deaths outnumbering births.
Migrants Easing Labor Shortfall in EU
The same authority noted that in 2022, 9.93 million non-EU citizens were actively employed within the EU, representing 5.1 per cent of the workforce. The employment rate for Europeans was higher at 77 per cent, compared to 62 per cent for non-Europeans.
In addition, the occupational distribution of non-EU workers in 2022 revealed over-representation in specific sectors, including hotels and restaurants (11.3 per cent compared to 4.2 per cent of all workers in the EU), construction (9.1 per cent compared to 6.6 per cent), administrative and support services such as call centres, logistics, and distribution (7.6 per cent compared to 3.9 per cent), and domestic work (5.9 per cent compared to 0.7 per cent).
