According to a poll conducted by Credit Info, nearly 8,500 people have moved out of Iceland, about half of them Icelanders, and most of them have moved to Norway.
In all, 8,438 people have so far left since the beginning of 2009 – about the same number as last year – and possibly more could move out next year. Of those who moved out of Iceland in the first 11 months of 2009:
4,035 have Icelandic citizenship.
2,152 are Polish.
265 are Lithuanian.
223 are German.
183 are Portugeuse.
1625 came from other countries originally.
Most Icelanders opt to move to another Nordic country. Norway was the top choice, seeing 1,307 Icelandic arrivals, followed by Denmark (1,146) and then Sweden (554). 176 have gone to the US, and 164 to the UK. The remaining 688 have moved to other countries in the world.
Of special note is the fact that departures increased dramatically in the last two months – at the end of September, the number of people who had moved out of Iceland was at about 7,000. Whether this is an indicator of an increasing trend remains to be seen.