Europe 2020 : addressing low skill labour migration at times of fragile recovery

Abstract

In the current context of deep recession since 2008, acute Eurozone crisis since 2009 and fragile recovery as of 2013, managing effectively labour migration is crucial and at the same time it may seem a balancing act between opposed concerns: why would we need immigration if domestic unemployment is high? Why don’t we encourage more intra-EU mobility to deal with differences in member state labour markets and further restrict immigration from third countries? This policy paper argues that there are some labour market sectors where ethnicisation (these are “migrant” jobs) persists and resists the crisis effects: natives do not want to take jobs in cleaning and caring even if they are unemployed. Moreover, to be unemployed does not make someone skilled for working in the cleaning and caring sector. Such sectors have been so far outside the scope of EU policy initiatives for managing labour migration and there is a gap there that needs to be addressed. We propose here an EU level sectorial approach, particularly looking at the domestic work sector.