Gorst: Keep immigration target of 325 per year - and this time we'll stick to it

Friday 17 January 2014

Ministers want to limit immigration to 325 newcomers per year, Chief Minister Ian Gorst has told the Chamber of Commerce.

He has called for a continuation of the current annual 325 target for overall immigration (people coming in minus people leaving) while the next Council of Ministers comes up with a long-term population policy. That 325 target was initially set in 2009 but in every single year since it has been broken, even though the Island is going through the worst recession in living memory. The four years since the target was set have seen an average of 575 newcomers coming to Jersey every 12 months.

Ministers face pressure from all sides on the issue of population – businesses want to be able to bring in staff from overseas, Islanders are concerned about the effects of immigration on areas like house prices and the ageing population means that future decades will see fewer Islanders in work paying for the expensive healthcare of more and more elderly people.

In his speech at the Chamber of Commerce January lunch, Senator Gorst also confirmed that he would be standing for re-election at the end of the year.

He said that new population control measures and restrictions on licences to employ newcomers would mean that the States would be able to actually stick to the target of 325 newcomers per year.

Senator Gorst said: "Government departments have been assuming an average inward migration figure of 325 people per year. This figure has underpinned our major policies like health transformation.

"I believe that this existing assumption of 325 individuals per year is a reasonable basis for an interim population policy which we plan to publish later this month.

"In the meantime we have been laying the groundwork for the next Council of Ministers to develop a new population policy based on robust research and sound forecasts."