An article in the Guardian “Comment
is free” site on the 30 January reported a poll by Ires, a
Romanian polling agency, which found that 15% of Romanians resident in Romania were
“very interested” in working abroad of whom 1 in 4 would choose the UK as the
preferred destination.
4% of the adult population of Romania is around
600,000. A substantial number. More
relevant perhaps are numbers in the age group most likely to migrate, the 15-39
year olds. This age group makes up about 9 million people in Romania of which
4% is 360,000. This broadly corresponds to our estimate of net migration from Romania and Bulgaria of between 30,000 and 70,000 a
year.