The global race for talent: Europe's migration challenge. Bruegel Policy Brief 2014/02, March 2014

In an ageing world with demographic and economic imbalances, the number of international migrants is likely to rise during the twenty-first century. The geography of migration flows is changing, however. Mobile people will be increasingly attracted by faster-growing economies. Therefore, some traditional destinations in western Europe will face stronger competition for skilled labour-not least from countries like China where the working-age population will shrink after 2020. At the same time, the sentiment in many European receiving societies is turning against migration and intra-European Union mobility.

Migration and Integration. Common Challenges and Responses from Europe and Asia

With the signing of the ASEAN Framework Agreement for the Integration of Priority Sectors (FA) in 2004, migration and integration issues gained significance on the agenda. Primarily concerned with increasing economic growth, this framework excludes the integration of low and unskilled migrant workers; instead, ASEAN efforts to address migration and integration issues have been limited to Mutual Recognition Agreements for skilled labour and professionals. After an analysis of migration policy in the region, we highlight specific barriers to the integration of labour migrants in two priority sectors – nursing, which is highly regulated by the state, and Information, Communications and Technology (ICT), which is typically selfregulated and privately run. Despite a MRA for nursing allowing registered nurses to practice in another ASEAN country under supervision of local nurses without registering with the host country’s nursing regulatory authority, in practice, there are major barriers to the free movement of nurses within ASEAN in terms of skills recognition, licensure requirements and other protectionist measures. Although regulations governing the inflow of ICT professionals are not as stringent as those for healthcare professionals, private costs associated with job search and gaining foreign employment are higher in the ICT sector, largely due to limited information on international mobility within the industry. Three sets of barriers to greater integration are discussed. First, the economic and political diversity within ASEAN makes integration more problematic than in the European Union. Second, the primary concern with value-adding economic growth means that regional agreements are focused on skilled and professional labour migration only. Third, the “ASEAN way” of doing things – via a strong emphasis on consensus and non-interference with domestic policies – often means that the FA provision for the free movement of labour is usually trumped by domestic policies that do not reflect the same desire for labour integration.

The Opportunity Costs of STEM Degrees and the Unmet Needs of the Low-Skilled: Two labour market problems explained. CEPS Policy Brief No. 295, 26 June 2013

There is general consensus that to achieve employment growth, especially for vulnerable groups, it is not sufficient to simply kick-start economic growth: skills among both the high- and low-skilled population need to be improved. In particular, we argue that if the lack of graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is a true problem, it needs to be tackled via incentives and not simply via public campaigns: students are not enrolling in ‘hard-science’ subjects because the opportunity cost is very high. As far as the low-skilled population is concerned, we encourage EU and national policy-makers to invest in a more comprehensive view of this phenomenon. The ‘low-skilled’ label can hide a number of different scenarios: labour market detachment, migration, and obsolete skills that are the result of macroeconomic structural changes. For this reason lifelong learning is necessary to keep up with new technology and to shield workers from the risk of skills obsolescence and detachment from the labour market.

Satisfying Labour Demands in Mid- and Low-Skilled Occupations through Immigration

The purpose of this article is to explain the importance and necessity of satisfying labour demands through the migration of less-skilled workers. It will also argue that more work is needed to anticipate labour and skill shortages and will examine ways of better identifying the role of mid- and low-skilled migration in filling such shortages.

Many worlds of the ‘low-skilled’, but only one generic policy. CEPS Policy Brief No. 312, 10 January 2014

This paper, which draws on research findings from the NEUJOBS project, encourages EU and national policy-makers to invest in a more comprehensive view of the phenomenon of ‘low-skilledness’. The ‘low-skilled’ label can hide a number of different scenarios: labour market detachment, migration and obsolete skills that are the result of macroeconomic structural changes. For this reason, the authors argue that it is necessary to promote lifelong learning to allow workers to keep pace with new technologies and to shield workers from the risk of skills obsolescence and detachment from the labour market.

Rethinking the Attractiveness of EU Labour Immigration Policies: Comparative perspectives on the EU, the US, Canada and beyond

Is Europe's immigration policy attractive? One of the priorities driving current EU debates on labour immigration policies is the perceived need to boost Europe's attractiveness vis-á-vis 'talented' and 'highly skilled' immigrants. The EU sees itself playing a role in persuading immigrants to choose Europe over other competing destinations, such as the US or Canada. This book critically examines the determinants and challenges characterising discussions focused on the attractiveness of labour migration policies in the EU as well as other international settings. It calls for re-thinking some of the most commonly held premises and assumptions underlying the narratives of ‘attractiveness’ and ‘global competition for talent’ in migration policy debates. How can an immigration policy, in fact, be made to be ‘attractive’ and what are the incentives at play (if any)? A multidisciplinary team of leading scholars and experts in migration studies address the main issues and challenges related to the role played by rights and discrimination, qualifications and skills, and matching demand and supply in needs-based migration policies. The experiences in other jurisdictions such as South America, Canada and the United States are also covered: Are these countries indeed so ‘attractive’ and ‘competitive’, and if so what makes them more attractive than the EU? On the basis of the discussions and findings presented across the various contributions, the book identifies a number of priorities for policy formulation and design in the next generation of EU labour migration policies. In particular, it highlights important initiatives that the new European Commission should focus on in the years to come.

Compositional effects on productivity, labour cost and export adjustments. Bruegel Policy Contribution 2012/11, June 2012

Sectoral shifts, such as shrinkage of low labour productivity and the low-wage construction sector, can lead to apparent increased aggregate average labour productivity and average wages, especially when capital intensity differs across sectors. For 11 main sectors and 13 manufacturing sub-sectors, we quantify the compositional effects on productivity, wages and unit labour costs (ULCs) based and real effective exchange rates (REER), for 24 EU countries. Compositional effects are greatest in Ireland, where the pharmaceutical sector drives the growth of output and productivity, but other sectors have suffered greatly and have not yet recovered. Our new ULC-REER measurements, which are free from compositional effects, correlate well with export performance. Among the countries facing the most severe external adjustment challenges, Lithuania, Portugal and Ireland have been the most successful based on five indicators, and Latvia, Estonia and Greece the least successful. There is evidence of downward wage flexibility in some countries, but wage cuts have corrected just a small fraction of pre-crisis wage rises and came with massive reductions in employment even in the business sector excluding construction and real estate, highlighting the difficulty of adjusting wages downward.

Productivity, labour cost and export adjustment: Detailed results for 24 EU countries. Bruegel Working Paper 2012/11, 12 July 2012

As a background document for Bruegel Policy Contribution 2012/11 ‘Compositional effects on productivity, labour cost and export adjustment’, this working paper presents detailed results for 24 EU countries on: • The sectoral changes in the economy; • The unit labour costs (ULC) based real effective exchange rate (REER) and its main components; • Export performance. • The ULC-REERs are calculated: • For the total economy, the business sector (excluding agriculture, construction and real estate activities), and some main sectors; • Using both actual aggregates and fixed-weight aggregates, as the latter are free from the impacts of compositional changes; • Against 30 trading partners and against three subsets of trading partners: euro-area, non-euro area EU, non-EU.

Women's Labour Market Performance in Europe: Trends and Shaping Factors. CEPS Special Report, September 2012

We investigate the changes in women’s employment patterns across EU countries over the last 20 years both in terms of labour market participation and type of jobs using individual data from ECHP and EUSILC databases. Using a logistic multilevel model, we then pin down the role played by institutional and policy changes in explaining women’s employment. The key results indicate that women’s employment trends are related to the institutional and policy changes that have been introduced in almost all European countries since the end of the 1990s. Such changes had an important impact on the labour market opportunities’ of women by affecting the quality of potential jobs available, the chances to (re-)enter the labour market and the opportunity costs of employment (vs. non-employment).