Greek residents in the UK

You asked

I would like to request the following information, if possible:

1. The number of Greeks resident in the UK from 2008 to 2017

2. The percentage of Greek workers/pensioners in the UK at the moment

3. Types of employment for Greek residents in the UK at the moment

We said

Thank you for your freedom of information request regarding Greek residents in the UK.

We publish annual estimates of population of the UK by country of birth and nationality for calendar years. These estimates are derived from the Annual Population Survey and have been accredited by the UK Statistic Authority as national statistics. These estimates can be found on our website at:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/datasets/populationoftheunitedkingdombycountryofbirthandnationality

Table 1 shows estimates for the number of Greek residents living in the UK for the calendar years 2008 to 2016.

1. Estimates are based on the Annual Population Survey (APS) which is made up of wave 1 and wave 5 of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) plus annual sample boosts which are included primarily to enhance the geographical coverage. As some residents of communal establishments are excluded from the coverage of this survey the estimates in this table are different from the standard ONS mid-year population estimates, which cover all usual residents. For a more comprehensive estimate of the UK population, please refer to: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/pop-estimate/population-estimates-for-uk--england-and-wales--scotland-and-northern-ireland/index.html

2. It should be noted that the LFS :-

   • excludes students in halls who do not have a UK resident parent
   • excludes people in most other types of communal establishments (eg hotels, boarding houses, hostels, mobile home sites, etc)
   • is grossed to population estimates of those living in private households. An adjustment is made for those who live in some NHS accommodation and halls of residence whose parents live in the UK. For this reason the sum of those born in the UK and outside the UK may not agree with the published population estimate.

3. The LFS weighting does not adjust for non-response bias by the nationality variable.

4. CI+/- is the upper(+) and lower(-) 95% confidence limits. It is defined as:
   1.96 x standard error

5. If the confidence interval is higher than the estimate, it is not considered reliable for practical purposes.

We have published estimates of the number of Greek residents in the UK who are in employment. This information can be found in a user requested table that was produced from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) data and has quarterly employment and population estimates by EU country of birth. This ad-hoc table can be found on our website at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/adhocs/006712eua2eua8andeu14populationandemployment

Please see the tabs ‘EU14 Employment’ and ‘EU14 Population’. You can calculate estimates for the percentage of Greeks in employment by using the figures in those two tabs.

Unfortunately we do not currently hold any (published or ad hoc) tables that would show the types of employment that Greeks residing in the UK engage in or estimates of the number or percentage of retired Greeks residing in the UK. However, this information can be obtained from the Labour Force Survey datasets.

We do provide a bespoke service for analysis that is not currently available. Information can be obtained from the customer services team of ONS Social Surveys Division. Special extracts and tabulations of data are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). Such enquiries should be made to socialsurveys@ons.gov.uk

As this information is already available to you via this route, we consider that s.21(1) applies to this request and the information does not have to be supplied under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. s 21(1) is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied.

Another route would be to access the Labour Force Survey datasets at the UK Data Service if you are able to run your own analysis. You can access anonymised Labour Force Survey (LFS) datasets from the UK Data Service. Details of how to access the data can be found here - http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access.aspx

Data can be downloaded free of charge for non-commercial purposes but if charges are applicable, you will be notified during the ordering process. Advice for commercial users - http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access/registration.aspx#/tab-commercial-users

Charges - http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access/charges.aspx

List of LFS datasets at the UK Data Service - http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/?q=labour+force+survey

LFS user guides- https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/labourforcesurveyuserguidance