Jersey’s population - 166,000 by 2065?

Friday 14 October 2016

Jersey’s population is continuing to rise and if current trends carry on there will be 166,000 people living in the Island by 2065, of which over 38,000 will be pensioners.

The States’ Statistics Unit says migration is currently running at around 1,000 per year, with 102,700 people living in Jersey in 2015. And that means we could be facing a shortage of 1,500 homes over the next three couple of years.

At that continuing rate of migration there will be 128,800 people living in the island by 2035, just 19 years from now.  

There is currently no population policy at all, but that net migration level is just under three times more than Ministers were planning for. The former "interim" population policy set a "planning assumption" of 325 a year, way less than the level which was actually experienced.

But the projections also show that if migration increases to 2,000 per year, by 2065 there will be 233,400 people living in Jersey, more than double today’s figure. 

The report concluded that: “The overall size of Jersey’s population has implications for the Island’s resources and can impact on residents’ quality of life.”

It showed that in 2013 and 2014 net migration was around 700 people per year, but in 2015 it rose to 1,500 people. 

Based on the average migration rise of around 1,000 people per year, the report says there will be a “potential shortfall” of almost 1,500 housing units over the three year period 2016-18.