Jersey’s population has risen by 1,300 a year since 2016

Jersey’s population has risen by 1,300 a year since 2016

Statistics Jersey’s latest estimate of the Island’s resident population says that 107,800 people were living here at the end of 2019, which was almost 1,100 higher than a year earlier.

The increase was largely due to immigration, which accounted for an extra 1,000, while ‘natural growth’ [births minus deaths] accounted for an extra 90 people.

The resident population has now increased by 11,700 over the last ten years, with net inward migration – the number of people coming into the Island minus those leaving – accounting for 80% of the rise.

‘The average increase in the resident population during the latest four-year period (2016 to 2019 inclusive), [was] 1,300 per year,’ the report says.

‘[It] is around four times that at the start of the previous decade (2001 to 2004: 400 per year) and similar to that seen during the middle of that decade (2005 to 2008: 1,300 per year).

‘Net inward migration has been greater than natural growth in each year throughout the period from 2001 to 2019, except for calendar year 2003.’

Of the additional 1,000 immigrants who arrived in Jersey last year, the report says roughly half were ‘licensed’ essentially skilled workers, while the other were ‘registered’ workers, which means they have no specific skills under government criteria.

The government has received continued criticism for not producing a permanent population policy, with the existing ‘interim policy’ now in place since 2014.

At that time the government forecast net inward migration of 325 annually, a figure which has been surpassed every year.

At the start of this year, before the Covid-19 crisis, Chief Minister John Le Fondré told the Jersey Chamber of Commerce that he believed the States would introduce a migration policy before the end of 2020, with a debate due to be held in the summer.

The government has indicated that the Island would be impacted by any immigration controls introduced by the UK as part of its Brexit programme due to Jersey’s membership of the Common Travel Area – a zone of free movement in the British and Irish Isles.

The UK is planning to introduce a points-based immigration system on 1 January 2021, with the Brexit transition period due to end a day earlier.

It is expected that workers viewed as being ‘lower-skilled’ will find it harder to migrate to Britain under the new scheme.

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