Numbers add up to

 need for more job creation ...

As Boston Borough Council struggles to get to grips with the concept of equality, news comes in that the Borough tops the list of increased immigration among Lincolnshire district authorities.
It leads all three data sources used to calculate this sort of thing - the National Insurance numbers allocated to overseas nationals (NINos), the Worker Registration Scheme (WRS) records data, and Flag 4 records data.
Boston now has 30 more registrations under NINo than it did in the last year - a total of 2,170 representing slightly more than three and a half per cent of the population.
Perhaps surprisingly, given the nature of employment usually undertaken, Boston’s total is vastly ahead of our neighbours in East Lindsey which stands at a mere 300.
Boston continues to be ranked fifth for the number of NINo registrations out of the 40 East Midlands districts.
Only Leicester, Nottingham, Northampton and Derby are above Boston, all of which have populations of over 200,000 compared to Boston’s 59,000.
And Boston, along with South Holland and Lincoln, make up three of the top ten
districts regionally for NINos.
Interestingly, the breakdown of nationalities shows the borough’s dominant national migrant group now hails from Latvia, followed by Lithuania, then Poland, Romania, Bulgaria making up the top five.
Oddly, the data on the industry and occupation types international migrants are working in tells us that the majority in Boston - almost 60% - work in “Administration, business and managerial services” - whatever they may be, followed by around 40% in “agriculture activities.”
Top ten occupations in the borough are process operatives and farm workers.
The Flag 4 records show NHS registrations and give a clue as to the size of family groups in the county, as they include youngsters up to 16, and people over 65.
Again, Boston tops the Lincolnshire list with 1,963 registrations - up 36 on the year.
Meanwhile, at 3.4% the unemployment rate in Boston is the second highest among the county’s thirteen economic zones, and also the second highest among Lincolnshire’s local authority districts.
What do all these the figures tell us?
They tell us that more and more people are chasing fewer and fewer jobs, which suggests that increasing employment ought to be much higher on the borough’s agenda than it is at present.

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