Analysis of Herefordshire population data in response to the conflict in Ukraine

Tuesday 22 March 2022 9.26am

The Office for National Statistics have recently published preliminary counts from the 2021 Census to help planning of the local and national emergency response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Intelligence Unit have prepared a brief on the population data to support Herefordshire’s response to the Ukraine conflict on Understanding Herefordshire.

In summary –

• There were 100 people born in Ukraine living in Herefordshire in March 2021, and almost 6,500 from neighbouring and the Baltic countries, most (49%) of whom are from Poland, followed by (27%) from Romania.
• Farms expect to employ an additional several hundred seasonal workers from Ukraine’s neighbours this summer. Herefordshire’s farms rely on seasonal workers from this part of the world with the majority coming from Bulgaria and Romania. The remaining workers largely come from non-EU countries that include Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Moldova.
• It’s likely that Polish people still make up the largest non UK-born group in Herefordshire but, based on the preliminary 2021 data combined with local administrative data, the Romanian population has grown substantially in the last decade.
• According to the 2011 Census, 53% of county residents who were born outside the UK arrived after the expansion of the EU in 2004. Nationally this figure was 40%, which highlights how much more of an impact the recent migration has had locally.