Skills needs of migrants

The ETF has been working on the skills dimension of migration since 2007, which included surveys on the skill profiles and use of migrants and returnees, mapping policy measures and good practices to support migrants/returnees from skills and employment perspective, and skill-related inputs into the migration dialogues between the EU and third countries upon the request. Our activities are devoted to how skills development and employment policies can contribute to the better management of circular migration, i.e. skills-migration nexus. In particular, the transparency and portability of skills, preparation of potential migrants, skills matching, and reintegration of returnees came on the agenda for a triple-win situation.  

Being an EU agency for human capital development in the European neighbourhood, ETF looks at migration from ‘human capital perspective’, which requires thinking and combining migration, labour markets and skills together at the European level. This highlights the need and the importance of knowing and analysing the education levels, skills, occupations and work experience of migrants. The new ETF project “Migration dynamics from human capital perspective in the Western Balkans” analyses the impact of migration on the skills pool and utilisation in the origin countries of the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). Evidence is gathered on the relationship between migration, human capital formation and labour deployment, which in turn provides clues for the future economic development of these countries (under different scenarios). 

More specifically, ETF aims to identify the impact of emigration on the human capital stocks and flows of the countries, and then to compare the skills profile of emigrant stocks with the skills needs and absorption capacity of the national labour markets. Naturally, this also involves the testing of concepts such as brain drain, brain gain, brain waste and brain circulation in the context of those countries. The results will shed light to under which conditions migration becomes ‘beneficial’ or ‘detrimental’ to the formation and utilisation of human capital in the domestic labour markets. ETF is working together with the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW) in this project throughout 2020. WIIW’s international and national team of experts, together with the ETF’s migration team, are developing an analytical framework which connects migration, human capital and labour utilisation together and apply it into six Western Balkan countries. You will see the results in the form of short country fiches as well as a comparative cross-country report with lessons learnt.