Did a million migrants really leave the UK during the pandemic?

We’re hearing strikingly different estimates about what’s happened to emigration during the pandemic, so what do we actually know? Ben Chu investigates

Some studies suggest the decline in the number of migrants in the UK might have been rather less extreme (PA)

In January, a bombshell study suggested that more than a million immigrants might have left the UK during the pandemic, representing the sharpest fall in the UK population since the Second World War.

The results were shocking in themselves, but also potentially highly economically significant since a migrant exodus on this scale would imply a major contraction in the UK’s potential labour force.

If true, it raises the risk of severe shortages in sectors that rely heavily on overseas workers, such as food production and hospitality, when the economy reopens.