Nauru had 9,378 residents as of July 2011.[1] The population was previously larger, but in 2006 some 1,500 people left the island during a repatriation of immigrant workers from Kiribati and Tuvalu. The repatriation was motivated by wide-scale reductions-in-force in the phosphate mining industry.[2] The official language of Nauru is Nauruan, a distinct Pacific island language, which is spoken by 96 percent of ethnic Nauruans at home.[2] English is widely spoken and is the language of government and commerce, as Nauruan is not common outside of the country.