Seems like a crazy number when compared to the u.s immigration numbers which is generally about twice that but with a population of 320 million. Seems questionable with wages and housing being such large issues currently.

There are a lot of upper middle class Hong Kong residents making high six figures to low seven figures (in HKD) who give up their high paying jobs and come to the UK knowing they would make much less and are fine with that because they don't want their children to suffer under President Xi.

Of course, I get the sense that if you have money, Canada is a better place to move to than the UK because of the higher salaries in certain sectors and the relatively lower taxes (of course, it is still higher than HK by a lot depending on your income).

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And with such little land. UK must be very crowded.

No there's plenty of room. The housing & job crisis is nothing to do with immigrants. The uk needs immigrants to keep certain sectors working at all, eg NHS.

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Most news outlets bring more details: Half of the number is students, there’s about 150k high skilled (STEM)migrant workers, the rest is consequences of refugee schemes for Ukrainians, Afghans and Hong Kong Chinese. In the case of students it’s an expected surge because universities are reopening now that covid case numbers are low.

UK's got empty houses everywhere.

Except they're not "empty houses" they're "property investments".

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Canadian salaries are a joke. Our best and brightest live and work in the US. There’s no comparison when it comes to salaries, cost of living and taxes. If your employer pays your insurance you’ll be better off than you would be in Canada.

The biggest problem with living in the US is insurance (worst case scenario would mean that a single, childless person pays up to $9100 per year in out of pocket max, plus the premiums). But the US is also a significantly harder place to immigrate to. H-1B, yes, lawful permanent residence? You would be waiting for years to know if you got approved.

I have done some calculations in the past to show that unless your income is very high, you may end up spending more money on healthcare in the US than the income tax you would have paid in Canada on the same income (multiplying the exchange rate at the time. So, an American making $100 000 is deemed to be making the same amount of money as a Canadian making $134 000 when USD/CAD is 1.34 like right now).

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But instead of the Canadian making 134 and the American making 100, for a skilled worker you're more likely to have the Canadian making 100 CAD and the American making 130 USD, then factor the taxes onto and exchange rate. You cannot assume that its just a difference of exchange rate. Typically you will get a lower offer in Canada even before the exchange rate is factored in.

The government is currently running on the explicit policy that it needs to suppress wages and the central bank is seeking a recession for the express purpose of undermining worker negotiation power.