The number of people leaving the UK has fallen to its lowest level according to statistics released today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The change is significant because, as the ONS note, "the fall in emigration is driving an increase in net migration". Net migration is important because it tends to be focused-on (and often misused) in immigration debates.

Emigration fell by 29,000 between June 2012 and June 2013 which was more than the 14,000 fall in immigration during this period. As a result, net migration has risen over the past year as more people entered the country than left it.

Who is staying?

The long-term international migration statistics show that 320,000 people left the UK in the year-ending June 2013. The following chart shows the nationality of the people that left.

141,000 British citizens departed the country in the year-ending June 2013, which was a slight fall of just over 10,000 on the previous year. However, there are far fewer leaving than there were in the mid-2000s. Between June 2005 and June 2006, 207,000 decided to leave the UK.

A similar decline has been seen in emigration of EU8 citizens; people from the central and eastern European countries such as Poland and Latvia that joined the EU in 2004. However, a look at the migration patterns of these countries show that emigration was higher when immigration spiked in the late 2000s.

The numbers may suggest that the loosening of restrictions on EU8 migrants entering other major European economies such as Germany and France may have weakened the migration flows in and out of the UK. The ONS release stated:

From May 2011 transitional controls that applied to EU8 citizens seeking work in other EU countries expired (these were never applied in the Irish Republic, Sweden and the UK). This may have had the effect of diverting some EU8 migration flows to other EU countries, such as Germany, which in 2012 experienced its highest net migration since 1995.

Net-migration to the UK from countries within the EU has shown a significant rise from 72,000 in the year-ending June 2012 to 106,000.The spike in EU net migration has been particularly pronounced in the western European nations that make up the EU15 with 52,000 more entering the UK than left between June 2012 and June 2013 (up 38% from the previous year).

The international passenger survey suggests that the vast majority of those travelling from the EU have entered for work-related reasons, a figure which it puts at 118,000. Fewer EU citizens departing the UK for work-related reasons put net work-related migration into the UK at 54,000, a huge rise of 36,000 on the previous year.

Also interesting was the increase in the number of people coming to the UK form EU15 countries to work, which went up from 41,000 to 59,000. That rise helped offset the fall in the number of students coming from EU15 countries to study which dropped from 27,000 to 17,000.

Though emigration may be at its lowest level since 2001, a look at the wider history of UK migration shows that the number of people leaving the UK has fluctuated considerably since 1964 and that it reached its lowest level in 1981.

Immigration and emigration from the UK since 1964. Source: Long-term international migration, Office for National Statistics Photograph: /ONS

Where are people emigrating to and immigrating from?

Changing migration trends since 1922 are about geography as well as rising numbers. Almost 100 years ago, Germany and New Zealand are among the top destinations for people leaving the UK. Now, they've been replaced by China and India.

There are two major datasets released showing migration statistics, the International Passenger Survey (IPS) and long-term international migration (LTIM). The IPS figures are derived from sampling the responses of travellers entering and departing the UK.

Although the IPS statistics are the main source for LTIM data, the latter also uses supplementary sources to give a more accurate measure of immigration and as a result LTIM figures are generally higher than those from the IPS.

Other key changes

The number of people entering the UK to work (202,000), has overtaken the number of people entering the UK for formal study (176,000) for the first time since 2009.

The 33,747 family-related visas issued was the lowest number since 2005.

15% more visitor visas were issued taking the total to 1.9m, including 80,000 more Chinese people.

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