EU should ease work permit terms for foreign graduates

The European Union should reform its legal labour migration policies and make it easier for people graduating in the EU to obtain a work permit in the EU, in order to attract its fair share of the global talent pool, according to a new Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development or OECD report.

Stefano Scarpetta, OECD director for employment, labour and social affairs, said: “The long-term competitiveness of the EU and its ability to move to a strong and sustainable growth path is at stake.”

The EU has overtaken the United States as a destination for international students, but most of them don’t stay after they graduate. Depending on the method used for calculating, between 16% and 30% stay on in Europe, compared to one in three students staying on in non-EU OECD countries.

“It should be easier for people graduating in the EU to obtain a work permit in the EU,” the report recommends.

The report, Recruiting Immigrant Workers: Europe, finds that migrants to the EU are younger and less well educated than those in other OECD destinations. Of the total pool of highly educated third-country migrants residing in EU and OECD countries, the EU hosts less than one-third (31%), while more than half (57%) are in North America.

Some progress has been made in the past decade, with a significant increase in the share of the highly educated among recent migrants – from 21% of the total in 2000 to 36% in 2011. But this is still fewer than received by North America (41%) or Australia and New Zealand (52%), the OECD says.

Belinda Pyke, director for migration and mobility in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs, said: “The EU needs to address demographic decline and shortages of specific skills. Talent from outside can help the EU deal with these challenges.”

Scarpetta added: “Skilled migrants can play an important role in addressing labour market shortages, drive innovation and promote productivity growth. Employers in most EU member states already report more difficulty attracting and retaining talent than those in competing non-EU countries.”

Blue Card hard to obtain

Currently many labour migrants are not coming to the EU under programmes for skilled workers. Among those who do, most come under national schemes, since the EU permit for highly qualified migrants, the EU Blue Card, is hard to obtain.

The European Commission conceded last week that the EU Blue Card, although designed to attract highly skilled workers from abroad, has been underused and failed to meet its objective with only a “limited number” of cards issued.

Only about 10,000 new arrivals would have qualified for the EU Blue Card in 2014, and of these, just 5,000 received it.

Of all non-EU migrants coming to OECD countries, only 31% of the highly educated migrants choose an EU destination, the European Commission said.

“Therefore, there is a clear need for further EU action to step up the attractiveness of the Union and its member states in the eyes of highly skilled workers,” it said.

In total, EU member states covered by EU legal migration policies received fewer than 80,000 highly qualified third-country labour migrants annually. By comparison, Canada and Australia have annual admissions under their selective economic migration programmes for highly qualified workers of 60,000 each.

On 7 June, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker announced his intention to promote a new European policy on legal migration to address skills shortages and attract talent to better cope with the demographic challenges of the EU, including through a review of the EU Blue Card.

Under the new scheme Blue Card holders will be given immediate and more flexible labour market access.

The revised scheme will make it easier for recent graduates and workers in shortage occupations – because a lower salary threshold applies – from third countries to work in the EU, thus increasing the retention of foreign talent educated in the EU and easing their entry from abroad.

The United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark, however, are not taking part in the adoption of this directive and will not be bound by it.

Lowering the wage threshold for youth is one of the channels identified by the OECD report for using EU instruments to increase the attractiveness of Europe for global talent. It suggests that a “Blue Card-Ready” pool of candidates whose qualifications have been recognised could also be considered in the longer term.

“It should be easier for people graduating in the EU to obtain a work permit in the EU,” the authors say.

It also calls for simpler procedures and processes to remove obstacles to attracting and recruiting talent.

And it says, as is being proposed with the reform of the EU Blue Card, provisions for intra-EU mobility for talented workers should be strengthened and emphasised so as to present Europe as a single labour market for global talent.

“The EU could do a better job in branding itself as a single destination and in advertising options for the highly qualified third-country nationals,” the report says.

The report is part of a joint research project by the OECD and the European Commission in response to objectives set by the Juncker Commission in 2014, which called for “a new European policy on legal migration [to] address shortages of specific skills and attract talent to better cope with the demographic challenges of the European Union [and] the legal immigration that Europe will sorely need”.

In May the European Parliament passed a new visa directive on European Union entry and residence that makes it easier and more attractive for people from third countries to study or do research at EU universities.

One of its measures ensures that students and researchers may stay at least nine months after finishing their studies or research in order to look for a job or to set up a business.