10. Labour Migration and the Highly Skilled

Finding work abroad is one of the major motivations for migrating. Migrants with different skill levels seek better life opportunities abroad and become crucial actors in destination country labour markets. Their human capital, mainly measured by their educational attainment, skills and professional experiences, affect significantly the ways in which they integrate to the labour market of the destination countries, but also to what extent they can contribute back to their origin country through financial remittances, knowledge transfer and investment. We focus on the specific contributions of highly skilled migrants who occupy a unique position in the literature. Highly skilled migration is perceived more and more as a phenomenon which can have positive effects on the development of both the migrant sending and receiving countries. Considering this, under this research theme, we focus on investigating various labour migration patterns (e.g. circular, temporary, seasonal migration), labour market integration of immigrants with respect to their human capital and the capacity of immigrants with different skill levels to contribute to development. Moreover, recognizing the significance of highly skilled migration for many EU countries and the global race for talent, we conduct research regarding the policies to attract the highly skilled and seek to identify the determinants of destination country choices of highly skilled immigrants as an important area for evidence based policy making.

Contact: Katrin Marchand and Elaine McGregor

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