A/HRC/14/30/Add.3 10. The variety of migration-related data collection tools and methods makes data comparison and analysis difficult. The country’s population census does not include data on immigration status and the Control of Immigration Statistics and International Passenger Survey, which are the most common statistical tools, record annual inflow of people but do not indicate the status or size of the country’s foreign population. Furthermore, no national database includes data on the number of children in immigrant families, while Home Office data cover dependents, but do not differentiate among them. Statistics on migrants’ detention are not disaggregated by sex and age. Some of these weaknesses are being addressed.12 B. Migration trends 11. Migration trends in the United Kingdom are heavily affected by global trends and the main triggers of international migration into the United Kingdom are economic migration, family reunification and asylum-seeking. Since 1997, economic migration has increased as a response to a growing labour demand. In 2002, the Government established a programme to attract highly skilled migrants13 and, in 2004, opened the labour market to A8 nationals. Recent governmental policy has grown more restrictive in relation to family migration and the acquisition of settlement and British citizenship. This more restrictive tendency has mainly resulted from the perceived lack of social integration of some immigrants and requirements for language capacity and knowledge of life in the United Kingdom have therefore been introduced, first for naturalization as a British citizen (as of 1 November 2005) and then for settlement (as of 2 April 2007). 12. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), with the economic downturn, the unemployment rate for migrant workers increased in the third quarter of 2008 to 7.3 per cent, almost one point higher than the total labour force unemployment rate, which was estimated to be 6.5 per cent over the same period. The unemployment rate of the total labour force is expected to increase to 9.5 per cent in 2010. The range of jobs on the National Shortage Occupation List14 has been reduced and the Resident Labour Market Test15 reinforced for skilled jobs. Moreover, the qualifications and salary requirements for foreign workers have been raised to a master’s degree and a minimum salary of £20,000. It is expected that these changes will contribute to a decrease in the number of non-European Union highly skilled workers by half.16 Immigration for low-skilled occupations was suspended indefinitely, inter alia, to reduce the number of non-European Union migrant workers. Lately, the rate of emigration from the United Kingdom has been increasing.17 12 13 14 15 16 17 GE.10-12095 Office for National Statistics, Migration Statistics Improvement Work Programme Update, August 2009. See infra para 21. This list presents the occupations for which qualified persons are in short supply in the United Kingdom and demonstrates that resident workers are insufficient to fill the available jobs in a particular occupation, and thus facilitates the admission of foreign nationals to be employed in those jobs. This test includes a series of requirements such as the advertisement of the job vacancy in the United Kingdom, inter alia, in accordance with the code of practice specific to the sector and job or using the Jobcentre Plus, which is a job-seeking tool. Ibrahim Awad, The global economic crisis and migrant workers: Impact and response (Geneva, ILO, 2009), pp. 8–9 and 47. Office for National Statistics news release, “Emigration reaches record high in 2008”, 26 November 2009. 5