Highly Skilled Migration to the EU and the EU Blue Card ... · • Improve attractiveness of EU • Facilitate admission and mobility • Harmonise entry and residence conditions

Highly Skilled Migration to the EU and

the EU Blue Card Directive

Lieven Brouwers

DG Migration and Home Affairs

European Commission

Labour Market Observatory, EESC

18 April 2016

• What is the EU Blue Card?

• 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?

EU Legal migration acquis

2001: Proposal for a Council Directive on the conditions of entry and residence of third-country nationals for the purpose of paid employment and self-employed economic activities (COM(2001) 386)

-> Withdrawn in 2006

2004: Green Paper on an EU approach to managing economic migration (COM(2004)811 final)

EU action on labour migration: 2005: Policy Plan on Legal Migration:

Announced legislative measures on labour immigration:

•General framework directive

•Highly skilled workers

•Seasonal workers

•Intra-corporate transferees (ICTs)

•Remunerated trainees

(COM(2005)0669 final)

Directives:

•2009: EU Blue Card

•2009: Employers Sanctions

•2011: Single Permit

•2014: Seasonal workers

•2014: Intra-corporate transferees

•2016: Recast Students (2004) and Researchers (2005)

Also: EU Immigration Portal

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

• "Highly qualified workers"

• Paid employees

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

The EU Blue Card

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”)

The EU Blue Card

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

Online open public consultation between 27 May – 30 Sept 2015

Results published on 6 April 2016

Total: 625 responses (online survey: 610 / written contributions: 15)

Public consultation on the EU Blue Card and the EU’s labour migration policies

The EU Blue Card

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

The EU’s current and future challenges:

• Demographic projections for the next decades

o Rapidly ageing EU population

o Progressively shrinking labour force

o Increasing old-age dependency ratio

• Current and future skills shortages in key sectors of the EU economy

o Cannot be filled by existing EU workforce despite high unemployment

o Labour mobility of the EU domestic workforce insufficient

o Potentially limits growth, productivity, innovation, economic recovery and competitiveness

o Shortages projected to increase, especially in highly skilled sector


Top 10 bottleneck vacancies at European level (ISCO 2-digit level)


Future shortages in EU? Large changes in labour demand by level of qualification

projected over 2012-25 (CEDEFOP) (in millions):

2012 2025 Change in %

Low 49 37 -11.5 -23.7

Medium 108 111 3.7 3.4

High 68 83 15.3 22.7


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

Is it necessary to recruit non-EU migrant workers to address labour shortages?

Profile 1: Employers, Employers' Associations , Managers 76 Profile 4: Media, Academia, NGOs, IOs, Countries of Origin, Individuals 283 Profile 2: Private/Public Employment Services, Trade Unions 31 Profile 5: Non-EU migrant workers residing inside the EU 76 Profile 3: NGOs, National/Regional/Local Authorities, Embassies 52 Profile 6: Potential non-Eu migrant workers residing outside the EU 92


How is the EU doing in the "global race" for talent?

The EU’s attractiveness gap:

• High attractiveness of EU

o Relatively strong attractiveness for highly educated potential migrants

o High ratings on factors of attractiveness (attractiveness = multifaceted)

• Relatively low numbers of HSW

o Low numbers of HSW attracted to EU

o Low retention rates of talent

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

How would you rate the attractiveness of the EU on the following factors ?

Profile 1: Employer, Employers' Association , Manager 76 Profile 4: Media, Academia, NGO, IO, Country of Origin, Individual 283

Profile 2: Private/Public Employment Service, Trade Union 31 Profile 5: Non-EU migrant worker residing inside the EU 76

Profile 3: NGO, National/Regional/Local Authoritie, Embassy 52 Profile 6: Potential non-Eu migrant worker residing outside the EU 92


Comparison Blue Cards & National HSW schemes

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

UK, IE, DK 7825 24008 22824 17176 13566 10518 10614

Blue Cards 3664 12964 13852

National HSW schemes EU25 16157 14980 17053 19751 19755 21940 24913

0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

Permits to highly skilled in EU25 + DK, IE, UK

Source: Eurostat


Blue Cards granted in 2014

Source: Eurostat

Granted

EU25 13.852

BE 19 0,14%

BG 21 0,15%

CZ 104 0,75%

DK

DE 12.108 87,41%

EE 15 0,11%

IE

EL n/a

ES 39 0,28%

FR 597 4,31%

HR 7 0,05%

IT 165 1,19%

CY 0 0,00%

LV 32 0,23%

LT 92 0,66%

LU 262 1,89%

HU 5 0,04%

MT 2 0,01%

NL 0 0,00%

AT 128 0,92%

PL 46 0,33%

PT 3 0,02%

RO 190 1,37%

SI 8 0,06%

SK 6 0,04%

FI 3 0,02%

SE 0 0,00%

UK


EU Blue Cards by citizenship in 2014 - Top 20

Source: Eurostat

117 nationalities in total

1 India 2.585 18,84%

2 Russia 1.175 8,56%

3

China (including

Hong Kong) 998 7,27%

4 United States 837 6,10%

5 Ukraine 761 5,55%

6 Syria 554 4,04%

7 Egypt 464 3,38%

8 Turkey 442 3,22%

9 Iran 426 3,10%

10 Serbia 402 2,93%

11 Brazil 289 2,11%

12 Mexico 269 1,96%

13 Tunisia 260 1,89%

14 Canada 223 1,62%

15 Pakistan 219 1,60%

16 Japan 199 1,45%

17 Jordan 176 1,28%

18 FYROM 169 1,23%

19 Belarus 163 1,19%

20 Australia 162 1,18%


Source: Eurostat

EU Blue Cards by occupation (excluding Germany) 2013-2014

Chief executives,

senior officials and legislators

7%

Administrative and

commercial managers

38%

Production and

specialised services

managers 53%

Hospitality, retail and

other services

managers 2%

Science and engineering

professionals 59%

Health professionals

2%

Teaching professionals

1%

Business and administration professionals

16%

Information and

communications technology professionals

14%

Legal, social and cultural

professionals 8%

OC2-Professionals

OC1-Managers

2013 2014

Total 12.964 13.852

Unknown 12.131 93,57% 12.437 89,78%

ISCO08 Known occupation 833 6,43% 1.415 10,22%

OC1 Managers 262 31,45% 434 30,67%

OC11 Chief executives, senior officials and

legislators

22 2,64% 32 2,26%

OC12 Administrative and commercial

managers

106 12,73% 163 11,52%

OC13 Production and specialised services

managers

130 15,61% 232 16,40%

OC14 Hospitality, retail and other services

managers

4 0,48% 7 0,49%

OC2 Professionals 571 68,55% 981 69,33%

OC21 Science and engineering professionals 367 44,06% 576 40,71%

OC22 Health professionals 18 2,16% 15 1,06%

OC23 Teaching professionals 4 0,48% 12 0,85%

OC24 Business and administration

professionals

96 11,52% 162 11,45%

OC25 Information and communications

technology professionals

66 7,92% 136 9,61%

OC26 Legal, social and cultural professionals 20 2,40% 80 5,65%


Why is the EU underperforming?

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


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?

How to address this?

Could the EU Blue Card's attractiveness be improved?

Profile 1: Employer, Employers' Association , Manager 76 Profile 4: Media, Academia, NGO, IO, Country of Origin, Individual 283

Profile 2: Private/Public Employment Service, Trade Union 31 Profile 5: Non-EU migrant worker residing inside the EU 76 Profile 3: NGO, National/Regional/Local Authoritie, Embassy

52 Profile 6: Potential non-Eu migrant worker residing outside the EU 92


What aspects are most important for the attractiveness of the EU Blue Card Max. three answers possible

Profile 1: Employers, Employers' Associations , Managers 76 Profile 4: Media, Academia, NGOs, IOs, Countries of Origin, Individuals 283 Profile 2: Private/Public Employment Services, Trade Unions,31 Profile 5: Non-EU migrant workers residing inside the EU 76 Profile 3: National/Regional/Local Authorities, Embassies, NGOs 52 Profile 6: Potential non-Eu migrant workers residing outside the EU 92


Is it better to have one EU-wide scheme or to keep parallel national programmes?

Profile 1: Employers, Employers' Associations , Managers 76 Profile 4: Media, Academia, NGOs, IOs, Countries of Origin, Individuals 283 Profile 2: Private/Public Employment Services, Trade Unions,31 Profile 5: Non-EU migrant workers residing inside the EU 76 Profile 3: National/Regional/Local Authorities, Embassies, NGOs 52 Profile 6: Potential non-Eu migrant workers residing outside the EU 92


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


Review of the EU Blue Card:

• Objective: ensure that the EU Blue Card is an effective instrument that facilitates the admission of HSW

• How?

o Strengthened Europe-wide scheme

o Harmonised EU common approach

o Provide for more flexible admission conditions

o Improve and facilitate admission procedures

o Enhance rights, including intra-EU mobility

o Better promotion and information provision


THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION

DG Migration and Home Affairs: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/

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

Documents

Highly Skilled Migration to the EU and the EU Blue Card ... · • Improve attractiveness of EU • Facilitate admission and mobility • Harmonise entry and residence conditions