In 2017, 1,150,000 people born in Albania were living in other states.
These data have been published by the Pew Research Center, which updated the 2017 information based on United Nations statistics.
According to INSTAT (Albanian State Institute of Statistics) data, there were 2.87 million inhabitants living in Albania in 2017, so the Albanians living abroad account for 40% of those who live in Albania, according to Monitor's estimates. This report is among the highest in the world, according to previous United Nations estimates.According to Pew Research's report, Italy is the first destination where Albanian emigrants live. In total there are about 460 thousand Albanians living in Italy.
In second place is Greece, which once was the main destination of immigrants, but that in recent years many have returned home after the debt crisis that conquered the Greek state.
Instead, the third is the United States, a favorite destination where many Albanians have gone through lotteries over the years (the number of applications reaches 200,000 in a year) or in other forms. In the United States of America there are 90,000 citizens born in Albania.
Then comes Macedonia with 70,000 persons born in Albania, followed by the United Kingdom with 30,000 Albanians and Germany with 20,000, Canada with 20,000.
In the recent years have been revived the immigration cycle, while the number of those who return home has been reduced, causing the net migration to deteriorate. According to INSTAT data, in the last seven years (2011-2017), about 330 thousand people, as immigrants, have been removed from Albania.
Since 2011, there has been an increase in Albanians leaving the country. In that year, which coincides with the removal of visas, was marked the highest number of the missing Albanains, with about 52 thousand. After gradually decreasing over the years, a new wave of emigration was again marked in 2017, at about 40,000 people fleeing.
While there are many people returning, the number of those fleeing is always higher and the difference is negative.
INSTAT data shows that in 2017, the number of emigrants is 39,905 and the number of immigrants 25.003. Net migration (the difference between emigrants and immigrants) results in -14,902 people.
A year ago, the difference was much lower, less than 10 thousand people. This shows that the more they, the less they return.