The world split as to whether immigration has a positive or a negative effect on countries

Public attitudes all over the world ,with respect to immigration, are actually split as almost an equal share of respondents in the global sociological survey defined immigration as something positive or negative for their own state.
 
The data from the global sociological survey "End of the Year Poll'', conducted each year by the Gallup International Association. The latest survey's edition, conducted in the period October - December 2011, collected the opinions of over 52,000 men and women from 59 countries from all over the world.
With the development of technology and the Internet, the world is becoming increasingly more open and an "unlimited" space. Bulgarians felt, further, the opening of the European space after Bulgaria's accession as an EU member-state in 2007.

However, the increasingly larger technological and legal opportunities for life and a career realisation in countries outside Bulgaria (especially in the European Union) raised the question of whether immigration is beneficial to individual countries. Especially in a global economic crisis, mounting unemployment and no jobs.

Just over one-third of the respondents on a global scale (34%) believed that immigration is something beneficial to their country. A similar proportion of respondents were of the contrary opinion - 38% of the surveyed were critical of the presence of foreign labour force in their country.


The countries of Eastern Europe are at the opposite end of the spectrum. In this part of the world, attitudes towards immigration are rather skeptical. Opinions in Bulgaria are close to those of our region. The share of Bulgarians who think that immigration is negative for our country is 29%, which is lower than double the proportion of Bulgarians who think that immigration is beneficial to our country (14%). The difficult situation on the labour market and rising unemployment are prerequisites for Bulgaria to perceive foreign labour force as a major threat in the competitive struggle to find a job. Despite the higher share of critical assessments in Bulgaria, we still observe an improvement in the attitudes of Bulgarians with respect to immigration since 2005. Seven years ago, public attitudes in Bulgaria with regard to foreign labour force were even more negative as an entire 68% of Bulgaria's population reckoned immigration to be a threat.

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