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Highly Skilled Migration to the EU a nd the EU Blue Card Directive

Highly Skilled Migration to the EU a nd the EU Blue Card Directive. WUN Migration Conference 2016. Lieven Brouwers DG Migration and Home Affairs European Commission. What is the EU Blue Card? Public consultation on the EU Blue Card and the EU ’ s labour migration policies

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Highly Skilled Migration to the EU a nd the EU Blue Card Directive

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  1. Highly Skilled Migration to the EU and the EU Blue Card Directive WUN Migration Conference 2016 Lieven Brouwers DG Migration and Home Affairs European Commission

  2. What is the EU Blue Card? • Public consultation on the EU Blue Card and the EU’s labour migration policies • Why does the EU need (highly skilled) labour migration? • How is the EU doing in the global race for talent? • Why is the EU underperforming? • How to address this?

  3. What is the EU Blue Card?

  4. The EU Blue Card • Council Directive 2009/50/EC on the conditions of entry and residence of third-country nationals for the purposes of highly qualified employment • Scope: • Applicable in 25 Member States (not in UK, DK, IE) • Third-country nationals (TCN) = non-EU citizens • "Highlyqualifiedworkers" • Paidemployees • Purpose: • Improve attractiveness of EU • Facilitate admission and mobility • Harmonise entry and residence conditions • Simplify admission procedures • Improve legal status • Entry into force: • Adopted 25 May 2009 • Transposition deadline 19 June 2011 • Majority of MS transposed in 2012, only in 2013 all 25

  5. Main entry conditions: Work contract or binding job offer (min. 1 year) Minimum salary threshold Higher professional qualifications Rights of Blue Card holders and their families: • Enter, re-enter and stay in issuing Member State • Allowed to work in the sector concerned in issuing Member State • Allowed to travel through other Member States (Schengen mobility) • Equal treatment with nationals on certain social rights • Facilitation for family reunification • Facilitation for Long-Term Resident status • After 18 months, some facilitation for moving to another Member State upon fulfillment of conditions ("intra-EU mobility”)

  6. Blue Card as a political priority Junker's Political Guidelines (July 2014) "I want Europe to become at least as attractive as the favourite migration destinations such as Australia, Canada and the USA. As a first step, I intend to review the “Blue Card” legislation and its unsatisfactory state of implementation.” European Agenda on migration (May 2015) "A review of the Directive will look at how to make it more effective in attracting talent to Europe. The review will include looking at issues of scope such as covering entrepreneurs who are willing to invest in Europe, or improving the possibilities for intra EU mobility for Blue Card holders.” "Key Action  Modernisation and overhaul of the Blue Card scheme." The EU Blue Card

  7. The EU Blue Card Public consultation on the EU Blue Card and the EU’s labour migration policies • How: • Online open public consultation • Timing: 27 May – 30 Sept 2015 • Target audience: broadest public possible • Online, in all official EU languages • Dissemination: as widely as possible, using various communication channels • Purpose: • Collect opinions on a range of issues related to economic migration • Gather opinions on how the shortcomings of the EU Blue Card scheme can best be addressed, and how it can be made more effective and attractive

  8. The EU Blue Card Results: Total: 625 Online survey: 610 Written contributions: 15 Publication on 6 April 2016 Respondents by category:

  9. Why does the EU need (highly skilled) labour migration?

  10. Why does the EU need (highly skilled) labour migration? • The EU’s current and future challenges: • Demographic projections for the next decades • Rapidly ageing EU population • Progressively shrinking labour force • Increasing old-age dependency ratio • Current and future skills shortages in key sectors of the EU economy • Cannot be filled by existing EU workforce despite high unemployment • Labour mobility of the EU domestic workforce insufficient • Potentially limits growth, productivity, innovation, economic recovery and competitiveness • Shortages projected to increase, especially in highly skilled sector

  11. Why does the EU need (highly skilled) labour migration? Top 10 bottleneck vacancies at European level(ISCO 2-digit level)

  12. Why does the EU need (highly skilled) labour migration? Future shortages in EU? Large changes in labour demand by level of qualification projected over 2012-25 (CEDEFOP) (in millions): Examples of sector-specific projected future shortages ICT professionals: By 2020: 756.000 unfilled vacancies for highly skilled ICT professionals, or around 130.000 vacancies per year Healthcare professionals: By 2020: shortfall of around 1 million highly skilled healthcare workers

  13. Why does the EU need (highly skilled) labour migration? Is it necessary to recruit non-EU migrant workers to address labour shortages?

  14. How is the EU doing in the global race for talent?

  15. How is the EU doing in the global race for talent? • The global supply and demand for highly skilled workers: • Supply side: • Since 1990s: increasing flows form Asia to major OECD countries and increasing exchange of skilled workers between developed countries • Progressively growing global talent pool • Diminishing share of OECD countries in the global talent pool • Demand side: • Demand for HSW in “knowledge economy” expected to continue to grow • Not only in high-income countries, also increasingly in medium-income countries. • Increasing global competition between growing number of economies • Global labour markets likely to absorb increasing supply

  16. How is the EU doing in the global race for talent? • The EU’s attractiveness gap: • High attractiveness of EU • Relatively strong attractiveness for highly educated potential migrants • High ratings on factors of attractiveness (attractiveness = multifaceted) • Relatively low numbers of HSW • Low numbers of HSW attracted to EU • Low retention rates of talent

  17. How is the EU doing in the global race for talent? How would you rate the attractiveness of the EU on the following factors ?

  18. How is the EU doing in the global race for talent? Statistics on the EU Blue Card and national HSW schemes

  19. How is the EU doing in the global race for talent? Comparison Blue Cards & National HSW schemes Source: Eurostat

  20. How is the EU doing in the global race for talent? Comparison Blue Cards & National HSW schemes Source: Eurostat

  21. How is the EU doing in the global race for talent? Blue Cards granted in 2014 Source: Eurostat

  22. How is the EU doing in the global race for talent? EU Blue Cards by citizenship in 2014- Top 20 117 nationalities in total Source: Eurostat

  23. How is the EU doing in the global race for talent? EU Blue Cards by occupation (excluding Germany) 2013-2014 OC1-Managers OC2-Professionals Source: Eurostat

  24. Why is the EU underperforming?

  25. Conclusions of the first implementation report EU Blue Card (May 2014) COM(2014)0287 Wide variations between MS in the way the Directive is applied (due to the many policy choices for MS) in the number of Blue Cards granted Relationship national schemes for attracting HSW and EU Blue Card Impact of the EU Blue Card on attracting highly qualified migrants to the EU? Too early to draw final conclusions but serious concerns for the success: Low numbers Flaws in the transposition Low level of coherence Limited set of rights Barriers to intra-EU mobility General need to improve communication of data and information by MSs Why is the EU underperforming?

  26. Why is the EU underperforming? Example: no unified scheme and diverging policy choices by Member States Criteria for admission: salary threshold Article 5(3): 1,5 times the average gross annual salary?

  27. How to address this?

  28. How to address this? Could the EU Blue Card's attractiveness be improved?

  29. How to address this? What aspects are most important for the attractiveness of the EU Blue CardMax. three answers possible

  30. How to address this? Is it better to have one EU-wide scheme or to keep parallel national programmes?

  31. How to address this? • General legal migration policy : • Better link migration to economic needs to enhance EU competitiveness and growth • Facilitate job matching/involve economic actors (European Dialogue on Skills and Migration) • Enhance cooperation with third countries • New rules for attracting and retaining students and researchers • Review of the EU Blue Card

  32. How to address this? • Review of the EU Blue Card: • Objective: ensure that the EU Blue Card is an effective instrument that facilitates the admission of HSW • How? • Strengthened Europe-wide scheme • Harmonised EU common approach • Provide for more flexible admission conditions • Improve and facilitate admission procedures • Enhance rights, including intra-EU mobility • Better promotion and information provision

  33. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION DG Home Affairs – European Commission: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/index_en.html European Migration Network: www.emn.europa.eu European Website on Integration: https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-integration/ EU Immigration Portal: http://ec.europa.eu/immigration

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