May 25 (UPI) -- The number of migrants arriving in Britain in 2022 jumped to a record 1,163,000 figures released Thursday show, with the largest increase among people from non-European countries.
Net migration, the number of people arriving minus the number leaving, surged to 606,000, up from 504,000 in the 12 months to June, driven by the world opening up as COVID-19 restrictions came to an end and schemes offering sanctuary to people fleeing war and persecution in Ukraine and Hong Kong, the Office for National Statistics said.
The figures, which for the first time include asylum seekers, show almost one million of the arrivals were non-EU nationals while only 151,000 were from the EU. Britons returning from living overseas made up just under 90,000 of arrivals. The number emigrating, or returning to their own country, was 557,000.
"A series of unprecedented world events throughout 2022 and the lifting of restrictions following COVID led to record levels of international immigration to the U.K.," ONS Center for International Migration Director Jay Lindop said in a Twitter post.
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"The main driver of the increase was people coming to the U.K. from non-EU countries for work, study and humanitarian purposes, including those from Ukraine and Hong Kong."
The number of work-related arrivals from outside the EU nearly doubled to 235,000, compared with 137,000 in 2021, as labor shortages began to bite, exacerbated by EU nationals leaving the country following Brexit and people not returning to the workforce following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Around 52,000 people moved to Britain from Hong Kong last year on special visas offered to holders of British National Overseas passports and their dependents after a 2020 crackdown on freedoms by Beijing while 114,000 Ukrainian nationals have come to Britain since Russia's invasion in February 2022.
Successive leaders of the ruling Conservative Party have pledged to get immigration down to "the tens of thousands" while "Taking back control of our borders" was central to Brexit.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the latest figures were "too high" but denied they were out of control.
"Numbers are too high, it's as simple as that, and I want to bring them down," he said on ITV's This Morning program.
Calling the new figures "extraordinary," Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the two-fold increase in work visas showed the Conservatives "have no plan and no grip on immigration.
Sunak has walked back on Boris Johnson's 2019 election campaign pledge to get migration to below 250,000 by the end of 2024, switching his focus onto illegal migration claiming it is "undoubtedly the country's priority."
Sunak has made stopping the small boats that brought more than 46,000 asylum seekers to Britain's shores last year and eliminating lengthy delays in processing their claims a cornerstone of his premiership.
But separate Home Office figures published Wednesday show the backlog of people awaiting a decision for more than six months has grown to three-quarters of all those waiting -- up by almost 20,000 to a record 128,812.
