Editing Demographics of Ecuador (section)

==Migration trends==
{{See also|1998–1999 Ecuador economic crisis}}
{{More citations needed|date=November 2010}}

In recent decades, there has been a high rate of emigration due to the [[1998–99 Ecuador banking crisis|economic crisis]] that seriously affected the economy of the country in the 1990s, over 400,000 Ecuadorians left for [[Ecuadorians in Spain|Spain]] and [[Italy]], and around 100,000 for the [[Ecuadorians in the United Kingdom|United Kingdom]] while several hundred thousand Ecuadorians live in the US, (500,000 by some estimates) mostly in the cities of the Northeastern corridor. Many other Ecuadorians have emigrated across Latin America, thousands have gone to Japan and Australia. One famous American of [[Ecuadorian American|Ecuadorian]] descent is pop music vocalist [[Christina Aguilera]].

In Ecuador there are about 100,000 Americans and over 30,000 [[European Union]] expatriates. They move to Ecuador for business opportunities and as cheaper place for retirement.

As a result of the political conflict in [[Colombia]] and of the criminal gangs that had appeared in the areas of power vacuum a constant flow of refugees and asylum seekers as well as economic migrants of [[Colombian people|Colombian origin]] had moved into Ecuadorian territory. Over the last decade at least 45,000 displaced people are now residents in Ecuador, the Ecuadorian government and international organizations are assisting them. According to the [[UNHCR]] 2009 report as many as 167,189 [[refugee]]s and [[asylum seekers]] are temporary residents in Ecuador.<ref>{{cite web|format=ZIP |url=http://www.unhcr.org/globaltrends/2009-Global-Tends-annex.zip |title=Table 1. Refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced persons (IDPs), returnees (refugees and IDPs), stateless persons, and others of concern to UNHCR by country/territory of asylum, end-2009 |work=[[United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees|UNHCR]] |date=2009 |access-date=2016-12-20}}</ref>

Following the migratory trend to Europe many of the jobs that those that left held in the country had been taken over by Peruvian [[economic migrants]]. Those jobs are mostly in agriculture and unskilled labor. There are no official statistics but some press reports estimate their number into the tens of thousands.

There is a diverse community of [[Middle Eastern peoples|Middle Eastern]] Ecuadorians, numbering in the tens of thousands, mostly from [[Lebanese people|Lebanese]], [[Syrians|Syrian]] and [[Palestinian people|Palestinian]] descent; prominent in commerce and industry, and concentrated in the coastal cities of [[Guayaquil]], [[Quevedo, Ecuador|Quevedo]] and [[Machala]]. They are well assimilated into the local culture and are referred commonly as "[[Turkish people|turcos]]" since the early migrants of these communities arrived with passports issued by the [[Ottoman Empire]] in the beginning of the century.<ref>See also: [[Lebanese Ecuadorians]]</ref>

Ecuador is also home to communities of [[Spaniards]], Italians, [[Germans]], [[Portuguese people|Portuguese]], French, [[British people|Britons]] and [[Greeks|Greek]]-Ecuadorians. Ecuadorian [[Jews]], who number around 450 are mostly of German or Italian descent. There are 225,000 English speakers and 112,000 German speakers in Ecuador of which the great majority reside in [[Quito]], mainly all descendants of immigrants who arrived in the late 19th century and of retired emigrees that returned to their terroir. Most of the descendants of European immigrants strive for the preservation of their heritage. Therefore, some groups even have their own schools (e.g. [[German School Guayaquil]] and German School Quito), Liceé La Condamine (French Heritage), Alberto Einstein (Jewish Heritage) and [[The British School of Quito]] (Anglo-British), cultural and social organizations, churches and country clubs. Their contribution for the social, political and economical development of the country is immense, specially in relation to their percentage in the total population. Most of the families of European heritage belong to the Ecuadorian upper class and had married into the wealthiest families of the country.

There is also a small Asian-Ecuadorian (see [[Asian Latino]]) community estimated in a range from 2,500 to 25,000, mainly consists of those having any amount of [[Overseas Chinese|Chinese]] [[Han Chinese|Han]] descent, and possibly 10,000 being [[Japanese diaspora|Japanese]] whose ancestors arrived as miners, farm hands and fishermen in the late 19th century. [[Guayaquil]] has an [[East Asian]] community, mostly Chinese including Taiwanese, and Japanese, as well as a [[Southeast Asian]] community, mostly Filipinos.