Migration
Ukraine is the major source of migrants in many of the European Union Member States. During the 1990s and early 2000s, Ukraine's sputtering economy and political instability contributed to rising emigration, especially to nearby Poland and Hungary, but also to other States such as Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Israel, Russia and Canada. Although estimates vary, approximately two to three million Ukrainian citizens are currently working abroad, most of them illegally, in construction, service, housekeeping, and agriculture industries.
Between 1991 and 2004, the government counted 2,537,400 individuals who emigrated; 1,897,500 moved to other post-Soviet states, and 639,900 moved to other, mainly Western, states.
By the early 2000s, Ukrainian embassies reported that 300,000 Ukrainian citizens were working in Poland, 200,000 in Italy, approximately 200,000 in the Czech Republic, 150,000 in Portugal, 100,000 in Spain, 35,000 in Turkey, 20,000 in the United States and small significant numbers in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. The largest number of Ukrainian workers abroad, about one million, are in the Russian Federation. Since 1992, 232,072 persons born in Ukraine have emigrated to the US.
From the point of view of the economic impact on natives, more appropriate than the absolute numbers is the volume of immigration as a proportion of the native population. Portugal and the Czech Republic have the highest rate of Ukrainian emigrants as a proportion of the native population.
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of Ukraine