Not much new from NINOs
Some observations on today’s latest release of National Insurance Number (NINO) allocations and last week’s labour market statistics, and what they tell us (or not) about the extent to which people from other Member States are continuing to take advantage of continuing free movement.
Firstly, NINO allocations continue at near-enough record levels. The mix of countries has changed over the century, with smaller numbers of NINOs newly allocated to people from the A8 countries being outweighed or matched by increases for people from Western Europe and Romania and Bulgaria.
Secondly, looking at the period since growth returned after the recession, while allocations are predominately to younger people and the patterns are very consistent for each country grouping, they are quite different across groups. For Western Europe, 18–24s match 25–34s very closely indeed. While these are clearly the largest age-groups, there has been some tapering off over the last year or so, in contrast to 35–44s and 45–54s.
The picture is different for the A8 original accession countries. There have consistently been around 20,000 more NINOs allocated each year to 18–24s than 25–34s. There is no real discernable difference in change across age-groups over time.
For Romania and Bulgaria, the picture is different again, with noticeably more NINOs allocated to 25–34s than to 18–24s, and with more NINOs allocated to 35–44s as a proportion of the group total than for EU14 or A8 country groups.
Does this tell us anything about whether the UK is becoming a less attractive destination for people from other Member States, particularly its attractiveness as a place to work? Overall, there is some correlation between the issue of NINOs and the number of people recorded by the Office of National Statistics as working in the UK. But again there are differences.
For the EU14, numbers working in the UK increase with NINO allocations, but there is always a considerable gap between the two.
Things are quite similar for Romanians and Bulgarians, although the difference between the numbers of NINOs allocated and change in numbers working has been much greater since the final lifting of restrictions on 1st January 2014.
Oddly, the pattern for the EU A8 countries is rather different. Since late 2008, the number of NINOs allocated on an annualised basis has fluctuated in a narrow band between 150,000 and 200,000. Yet over this period change in the number of workers on the same annualised basis has fluctuated between nil and over 150,000 with little relationship between the two series.
Looking at these together, it seems particularly hard to conclude anything about change in the number of EU A8 workers in the UK from change in NINO allocations. While growth in the number of these workers has undoubtedly tailed off, that is not inconsistent with previous upward trend. Over the last decade each two years of growth have been followed by two years of flatness (highlighted points are Oct-Dec at two-year intervals). While I wouldn’t want to make too much of this, equally not too much should be made of the dip in worker numbers in the most recent quarter. The trend, however it is looked at, continues upwards. If things really are changing, we aren’t likely to know for some time yet…
