Norway registered 58,200 immigrants last year. That is 8,600 fewer than the previous year. This is a record decline, in particular because of lower numbers coming from Syria.
Net immigration to Norway stood at 21,300 people in 2017, down 4,700 from the previous year. The decline was a result of 8,600 fewer immigrations, with 3,900 fewer emigrations.
“After the exceptional year of 2016, immigration from Asia, and in particular Syria, is far less, which explains much of the decline in the total number of immigrations. At the same time, fewer are leaving Norway, although the number is the third largest that has been measured,” says Adrian Haugen Ordemann, Executive Officer of Statistics Norway.
Still, many emigrate from Norway, although the number is somewhat lower than its peak in 2016. There are notably fewer people from Asia and the Nordic countries leaving Norway.
58,200 people immigrated to Norway last year. 8,400 of them were Norwegian citizens, while 49,800 were foreign.
“The decline from one year to the next has never been so great since the measurements began in 1958. It is the number of immigrations from Asia in particular that has declined, with a large proportion of them being Syrians. The explanation lies mainly in the introduction of border controls in the Schengen area and the EU-Turkey agreement. The agreement was introduced in spring 2016 to limit the flow of asylum seekers coming into Europe in the wake of the refugee crisis that occurred in the autumn of 2015,” says Ordemann.
The three years with the greatest emigration from Norway are the last three – 2015-2017. After peaking in 2016, the number dropped by 3,900 last year, to a total of 36,800 people. 10,200 of them were Norwegian citizens, while 26,600 were foreign.
© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today
