Among some of the world's richest countries, Germany is one of the most generous when it comes to granting permanent residency to migrants.
ADVERTISEMENTAmong some of the world's richest countries, Germany is one of the most generous when it comes to granting permanent residency to migrants.
New data from the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) shows 860,000 people were allowed to stay last year.
That represents a 2% drop compared with 2017 and runs against a general increase overall among the 36 OECD countries, which includes more than a dozen EU countries, Turkey, the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Chile.
In total, they gave permanent status to 5.3 million migrants in 2018, a 2% hike on the previous year.
Only the United Status was more generous than Germany among OECD countries, granting permanent status to 1.1 million migrants, a drop of 3% on the previous year.
"Since 2015, European OECD countries have collectively received more permanent migrants than the United States," the report notes.
"Nevertheless, the United States remains the largest single destination country for migrants, followed by Germany," it adds.
The UK completes the top three with just over 340,000, a 3% drop fully attributable to a decrease of inflows from other EU countries, according to the report.
Large increases were recorded in Spain and Canada which welcomed 324,000 and 320,000 new "permanent migrants" respectively last year, to complete the top five.
The other European countries where immigration inflows exceeded 200,000 were France — where it has fluctuated within a relatively narrow band between 250,00 and 260,000 every year since 2013 — and the Netherlands.
The number of asylum applications has continued to decline so the 2% boost was mainly attributed to family migration — when permits are granted to family members for reunification — and labour, the latter of which rose by 6%.
On average across OECD countries, more than 68% of migrants are employed and their unemployment rate is below 9%.