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750,000 eastern Europeans

have come to UK since 2004,

figures show

Tuesday February 26 2008
Guardian.co.uk
Louise Radnofsky
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk
on Tuesday February 26 2008.
It was last updated
at 11:57 on February 26 2008.

More than 750,000 workers from Poland and other eastern European countries have come to Britain since EU enlargement in 2004, the Home Office said today.

The latest figures show that 765,690 workers successfully applied to come to the UK between May 2004 and December 2007, and 5,200 had their applications refused. Around 20,000 fewer immigrants came in 2007 than in the previous year, however.

Other trends remain steady: Poles account for seven in ten of the immigrants, half of this year's arrivals are employed in administration or hospitality, and the newcomers are almost entirely young and arrive without dependants.

They are living across the country, and East Anglia and the Midlands have now overtaken London as the most popular destination. Around 28% of workers registering in 2007 have settled in those two regions. Wales and Northern Ireland have had the fewest registrations.

The Home Office said in its report releasing the figures that the migrants were "contributing to the success of the UK economy, while making few demands on our welfare system".

This year's arrivals included 2,015 bus, lorry and coach drivers, 4,325 care workers, 815 teachers, researchers and classroom assistants, 110 dental practitioners and 1,035 doctors and nurses, the report said.

Three quarters of the 12,000 requests made by immigrants this year for income support and jobseeker's allowance were rejected.

In separate numbers released today, the government said that asylum applications were 19% higher between last October and December than in the winter of 2006. There were 6,910 applications in the last quarter of 2007, though the number of applications across the year was about the same as in 2006.

The number of principal asylum applicants deported fell by 25% to 2,765.

The proportion of applicants receiving an initial decision within two months fell to less than half, continuing a steady decline from 76% in the first three months of 2006.

750,000 eastern Europeans have come to UK since 2004, figures show,
G,
26.2.2008,
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/feb/26/
immigrationpolicy.immigrationandpublicservices