Achieving the "Quadruple Win": Labor migration strategies for Europe to meet its skill needs

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[00:00:00.09] - Kate Hooper

Hello and welcome to today's webinar, Achieving the Quadruple Win: Labour Migration Strategies for Europe to Meet its Skills Needs. My name is Kate Hooper. I'm a senior policy analyst with Migration Policy Institute, and I'm delighted to be moderating today's discussion. Europe faces major labour and skills shortages, particularly as its workforces age and countries try to meet the demands of the digital and green transitions. We're seeing a lot of efforts by EU and national policymakers to invest in upskilling their workforces and to increase productivity. But we all know that migration also has an important role to play. Irrespective of current political climates, it's really important to be thinking about ways that Europe and other destinations can attract and retain workers with in-demand skills from other countries and help maintain Europe's competitiveness. Alongside initiatives like the EU's newly agreed talent pool, we're also seeing the EU and its member states seek to deepen their cooperation with partner countries on migration issues, including the EU talent partnerships and their national initiatives such as India and Germany's Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreement. But this raises really important questions, both about how to, how to manage migration and recruitment along these corridors so that they benefit all parties, and also ways to simultaneously promote skills development and promote the effective circulation of skills.

So we're very excited to be exploring some of these questions today, um, and launching a new report that MPI and MPI Europe have been working on with the support of the European Commission. My colleague and co-author Ravenna Sohst will momentarily present some key findings from this report, and we're also joined by some stellar speakers who will share their own insights on these topics. I will hand over the floor to my colleague, Ravenna Sohst, now, who will share some insights from our report.

[00:01:54.04] - Ravenna Sohst

Thank you very much, Kate, and thank you everybody for joining this webinar today. We are very excited to share some of the findings from our recent research on best practices for designing and managing labour migration to Europe. This research report was commissioned by the European Commission, the Directorate-General for International Partnerships. And it started on the premise that migration is one part of the solution to Europe's skills and labour shortages. The question, however, is how this can benefit all parties. And what do we mean by all parties in this case? We mean the countries of origin, countries of destination, migrant workers, and employers. So those are the four parties, and that's why that's where the title for our webinar also comes in. That's the quadruple win that we have been referencing. How did we go about responding to these questions? We applied several steps in terms of methodology. First, we started with a large quantitative mapping of bilateral labour migration flows, 122 corridors between all EU member states. And the largest countries of origin of the migrant workers in each of these countries. And then based on this mapping, we selected 5 corridors for an in-depth analysis in close cooperation with DG INTPA, and we conducted that research based on fieldwork and consultations with governments, civil societies, employers, and migrant workers at origin and destination.

So that really gave us a very rich base in terms of data and information to draw on. Which are the 5 corridors we selected. You can see them here on this slide. As you can see also, they're extremely diverse in terms of both the size of the flows that we can see along these corridors, in terms of the skills and profiles that we see, in terms of formalization and government cooperation, and of course, in terms of economic, historical, and geographic context. So the 5 corridors are India and Germany, Vietnam and Hungary, Peru and Italy, Bangladesh and Portugal, and finally Senegal and Spain. I want to give you a very quick warning before I dive into the results, is that these corridors have a lot of rich analysis and I will not be able to cover all of this in this very short presentation of the webinar. So I do invite you to go into the report that was published today to have a more comprehensive understanding of them, but to get us started, to get this discussion started, I will dive briefly into each one of them. So let's go, let's share some insights from the 5 corridors, starting with the corridor between India and Germany.

[00:04:56.07] - Ravenna Sohst

Compared to the other 4 corridors we looked into for this research study, this corridor probably stands out by its high degree of formalization and government cooperation in between these two countries. Indian migration, labour migration to Germany has been rapidly increasing over the past years. According to Eurostat figures, there were nearly 40,000 permits issued for first-time employment purposes to Indian nationals between 2019 and 2023. However, this does not even take into account yet of other channels such as Indian students that have also been coming to Germany and that are potentially in the pipeline to join, for instance, the German labour market. Indian workers also find employment in a range of sectors and skills levels in Germany, notably in the STEM field, but also in many other areas. And all of this is encouraged and facilitated by major reforms both in Germany and in terms of cooperation between these two countries. Germany in recent years has undertaken reforms to its immigration policy framework, and Germany and India have also entered into a mobility— a migration mobility partnership agreement, which is in force as of 2023 and was actually the first of its kind for Germany, but is a type of framework that India is a lot more familiar with.

And I think we'll hear a little bit more about this afterwards with the panellists. And so there's really strong political support for scaling these corridors on both sides with frequent coordination. But there are still important bottlenecks and challenges that exist along this corridor. For instance, in terms of preparation of potential migrant workers in India, I'm thinking about preparations in terms of language acquisitions, with the Goethe Institute in India, for instance, being— most Goethe Institutes being really above capacity in India at the moment, but also difficulties in regulating private intermediaries that are very present in India. And India is just generally facing a very complex and dynamic ecosystem of private intermediaries and recruiters that pose challenges in terms of information sharing, exploitative practices sometimes to potential migrants. The second corridor, which is really completely different to the first one we just looked into, is the one between Bangladesh and Portugal. It is notably different because along this corridor there's basically no formalization of bilateral cooperation. There's no bilateral agreement at this point. And although Bangladesh is, of course, part of the EU Talent Partnerships, it is not in this specific corridor with Portugal. So over the past years, we've seen a growing number of employment permits that were issued to Bangladeshi nationals in recent years.

Between 2019 and 2023, about 15,000 permits. However, what we found in our fieldwork was that actually there is a large degree of secondary movement also happening, meaning that Bangladeshi migrant workers would arrive in other European countries such as Italy or Hungary or other countries and then move only in a second step to Bangladesh, where often they work in the agricultural sector. That was really the main sector that came out of this, but also potentially other sectors such as hospitality and so on. The sector is therefore— the corridor is therefore very different to the one we saw previously and marked by relatively high levels of informality, also due to limited government engagement. Another issue to raise along this corridor is that there is actually no Portuguese embassy in Bangladesh. And so for those aiming to obtain a work permit, they would need to move to India, where the closest embassy is that can issue these work permits. However, in our interviews and in our fieldwork, one challenge that came out of this was that they, some migrant workers have issues in first obtaining a visa to enter India and then can take up their, their visa appointments.

In terms of interest and potential for scaling this corridor, we found relatively little interest on the Portuguese government side to scale this corridor, with their efforts mostly focused on other Portuguese-speaking countries. However, we did find some more interest among employers in Portugal that actually expressed interest in expanding and formalizing potentially this corridor more. Let's move to the third one. It's a quick run-through. Here we are speaking about the Peru-Italy corridor, which yet again is quite different to the other ones, specifically also because of the profile and sectors that we're looking into for this corridor between Peru and Italy. 72% of employment permits issued were given out to female migrant workers, which is a stark contrast compared to the other corridors we look into in this report. And that's also connected to the fact that there is a really strong concentration here in the personal care and domestic care sectors where these migrant workers are working. Compared to the other corridors, we also see that this has a much stronger sort of historic its founding with the emergence of this corridor dating back to the early 20th century, where Italian families in Peru started returning partly to Italy, driven by economic and political factors and so on.

And that underscores the perception in this corridor of linguistic and cultural proximity and the idea that a lot of the migrant workers are really there to stay for a longer time, are integrating a part of the tissue, let's say. Nonetheless, like between Portugal and Bangladesh, there's no bilateral labour mobility agreement or framework at this point. And so much of the recruitment happens through private intermediaries, diaspora networks, and so on in both countries. Moving on to the next one between Senegal and Spain. This also is, I think, a very, very interesting corridor because we see at the same time a strong focus in this corridor on irregular migration that has been sort of very visible in the public perception, especially through boats that have been departing from Senegal via the Atlantic route towards Spain, but also a long and sustained cooperation on migration management and labour migration between Senegal and Spain, notably via the GECCO, Spain's Seasonal Work Program, the GECCO program, which essentially is a circular labour migration program in the agricultural sector, which has been established first in 2007, but then really taken up again in 2019. However, this program is relatively small in scale.

We're talking about a few hundred, maybe 350 or so participants in 2025 versus much larger flows, of course, that we see within this corridors and that are driven by other factors such as work opportunities in Spain, of course, and also a growing and increasingly well-established diaspora in Spain of the Senegalese migrants and so on. However, there are several important challenges here also. One is that labour migration along this corridor remains restrictive. Notably due to difficulties in obtaining visas, visa appointments. For instance, there is also a secondary market for visa appointments that's very, very, very active in Senegal. And other issues such as short employment permit, short terms of work within this circular migration scheme in Spain, concerns around exploitative recruitment or work practices and so on. And then finally, before we zoom out for some larger conclusions, here are some quick thoughts on the Vietnam-Hungary corridor. So there has been an increasing number of employment permits issued to Vietnamese nationals in Hungary in recent years, and that's also what we found. But actually, just as we were about to start this research in January 2025, Vietnam was actually removed from the list of eligible countries for the guest worker permit in Hungary, which means that this corridor at the moment is somewhat in suspension due to negotiations and discussions around the readmission agreement between these two countries.

However, we still see that there was a rising number of Vietnamese workers that had been coming to Hungary over the past years, somewhat in a way the opposite to what we've seen perhaps between Portugal and Portugal, meaning that many of the Vietnamese workers that come to Hungary don't come there with the primary goal of staying in Hungary, but take it as a transit country or as a stepping stone to then move towards other EU member states that potentially offer higher wages, such as, yeah, like Germany, for instance, or other countries in the EU. So within this framework, the recruitment has been happening heavily due to, or with reliance and support of, private recruitment agencies, as in the other channels as well, and that offered services to employers and the workers. Now zooming out, we have a few key takeaways from these studies, and as you can see, there's a lot of contextual and sort of in-depth analysis that can be done on each of these corridors. But we wanted to take a moment to, to, yeah, to take a step back and think about best practices and enabling conditions for scale when thinking about labour mobility corridors and partnerships.

And so here is a selection of a few of these. One is that skills development initiatives need to align, of course, with destination and origin country needs, and that presupposes already frequent or regular coordination channels, exchanges, both to understand what type of skills and profiles, for instance, are in demand in destination countries and which ones are in supply in origin countries, and then to coordinate along these lines. We also found a need, of course, for effective systems for matching employers and prospective workers. For instance, in several of the corridors, we've found evidence of overqualifications or of persons that were unable to find work at their skills levels, which could be improved through more effective systems of matching. Thirdly, there's the question of accessible and efficient visa pathways. I mentioned it briefly in the context of Portugal and Bangladesh and Senegal and Spain, where it can be a challenge to access visa appointments or embassies at all in cases where it is not there, like the Portuguese embassy in Bangladesh, for instance. And so that is really the fundament for building up and scaling labour migration channels, of course. Fourthly, the protection against worker vulnerability and exploitation.

Again, we've seen various degrees of efforts that are being put into this area. Nonetheless, in all of the, in all of the quarters we looked into, this is a persistent vulnerability and potentially a challenge, especially of course in higher risk sectors. Lastly, no, almost, we have the government-to-government coordination data sharing that connects to the first point I mentioned earlier a little bit. We need to align, of course, priorities in terms of initiatives, and that goes along with coordination. Data sharing, as I mentioned earlier, and finally, programming to maximise the development impacts of labour mobility. And that's really about making sure that skills are fostered in origin countries, that capacities for training, for instance, are increased there, etc. And we're happy to, to dive into these more. And then finally, some thoughts on our recommendations to the EU. And again, this is just This is just an extract and there's more in the report. But one really outstanding issue is the critical importance of tackling information gaps. When we spoke with migrant workers, and we were lucky to speak with many across the different, across the different corridors, that's one issue that came out again and again.

And I think there's a lot of work that could be done to tackle these gaps. The second one is visa processing procedures. As I mentioned earlier, with access to visas, processing times, cost sharing, etc., this all goes into, goes into this bucket, let's say, of recommendations. Thirdly, we have support for skills development, investments in language training. This recommendation is a little bit variable. For instance, it is one that came out very, very clearly between Germany and India, where there's high demand for language skills. It might be a little bit less relevant in other corridors, let's say like Peru and Italy, where perceptions of linguistic proximity and so on already make that language skills are less of an issue. But still, it's one that was sort of a cross-cutting recommendation. And then finally, a big point on ethical recruitment practices, as I mentioned, especially in high-risk sectors. And that includes also the agricultural sector, for instance, that has been one of the main sectors in several of the corridors we've been looking into, like for instance Senegal and Spain within the Circular Labour Migration Program, the GECCO program, but also, for instance, between Portugal and Bangladesh once more.

That's it from my side with a brief overview of the key findings. And yeah, thank you.

[00:20:04.03] - Kate Hooper

Thank you so much, Ravenna, for that overview. You covered a lot of ground from a big report, and the report is available, as you may be able to see in the webinar chat, so you can download and dig into some of the themes that Ravenna's covered in more detail. So thank you again, Ravenna. I'd like to turn the floor now over to our first speaker, Francesco Luciani, who is head of the Migration and Forced Displacement Unit in European Commission's Directorate-General for International Partnerships. Thank you so much, Francesco, for joining us today. One of the questions guiding our report was how to achieve the quadruple win in labour migration to Europe. So that is ensuring that labour migration can benefit destination countries, countries of origin, workers, and employers. And I wondered if you could talk about how our report, and more broadly, this quadruple win perspective ties into INTPA's priorities on migration and migration partnerships. Thank you so much, and the floor is yours.

[00:21:01.05] - Francesco Luciani

Many thanks, first of all, for having organised this webinar, and I'd like again to thank the MPI for the excellent study that they have carried out at the request indeed of the Directorate-General International Partnership that I'm happy to represent. The study was meant for us to really provide some suggestion on how to proceed further in our work of preparation of partnership with third countries. The European Union is involved very much on labour migration, more than what is commonly believed. I mean, it's clear that under— in accordance with the EU treaties, the member states, each of them, have an exclusive competence on the volume of admissions to the— of economic union, has shared competence on what is illegal migration. And on top of having mixed competence together with the member states on regulating how legal migration has to happen in the European Union, is also increasingly concerned for the risk of losing competitiveness because of the lack of skilled migrants or workers more in general in our labour market. And therefore, it's already quite some time that we have been— various services of the European Commission working in view of identifying the professions that are in shortage within the European Union, and at the same time also the services like mine that are in relation with partner country, with origin countries, increasingly we see that partner countries would like to put labour migration at the centre of our discussion, in the case to ensure that this is part and parcel of the many things we discuss in all topics.

So we are also trying to connect dots. And let me add that we are also an organization that is in line with the, not simply the EU interests, but also the EU values. So we are absolutely attentive to human rights, and notably also in this case the rights of the migrants. So we believe, we have been also promoting, we applied in the EU, we promote worldwide fair recruitment, and we also are very attentive to prevent or to fight against the victimization in any form of the migrant workers, be that labour exploitation, child exploitation, corruption, but also the risk of trafficking human beings. So if you connect all these various aspects, indeed you get to, uh, to see the kind of challenge we had in front of us. The, the quadruple win is indeed a nice in a nice expression that can cover many of the things and not even all of the preoccupations we have. So the European Union has recently made a step forward in, let's say, better organizing labour migration towards the EU because it's a new of very just a few days ago our Council and the Parliament have reached a compromise together with the European Commission on a proposal that the Commission had done a few years ago on the establishment of the EU Talent Pool.

The EU Talent Pool is expected really to change dramatically the way in which labour migration happens towards the European Union because it will create a database where basically any interested foreigner willing, having the intention and the hope to work, to come and work inside the European Union, will be able to apply and to present its candidacy, presenting qualification and trying to find there also job vacancies, concrete job vacancies taken from the list of more than 40 professions in shortage for the member states that will be interested to publish those vacancies. So this is going to happen in a few years now, the time to build all this. Nevertheless, indeed, and I connected to what I just said earlier, we are persuaded based on experience that this database or this facilitated connection between employers and potential workers will not fly alone. I mean, of course we hope everything will be smooth. Nevertheless, experience showed that you need also to cultivate your garden. I'm gonna say you have to work around this to make things happen smoothly because there are a number of problems that can prevent you from accessing to the best possible results. You can have vacancies, but if your if people apply, don't have the skills or don't understand the skills that are needed, or don't have ways of communicating with the potential employers, or whether there are barriers, administrative barriers, sometimes not seen barriers that prevent, for instance, a worker from having access to a permit or to quickly learn the language that is needed, and Europe is famous for being extremely complicated from the linguistic point of view, or if it's difficult to also bring the family or make the papers for, let's say, having quickly a regular status.

So there are a number of things that can derail the what seemed to be very simple, I mean, the matching of demand and, and offer. And therefore we have been thinking a lot about what should we done, we, in relation with the third countries, with the origin countries, to, to avoid problems. And of course, uh, um, we, we, we, we didn't start from the scratch because we have a knowledge more or less of all the countries, we are present in all the countries. Nevertheless, we really felt that we had to increase our knowledge, and that's why we came to MPI indeed to help us learning from experiences. Which experiences? I mean, there is an enormous quantity of experience you can make, but we wanted to start first from the experiences that our member states have been already doing. So that's why we started from concrete corridors. Let's look at experiences that work. Maybe they worked badly, but we can also learn from mistakes, from unsuccessful events. And therefore, we did that together with MPI. We started from a broad perspective and then we focused, we zoomed on some 5 corridors. We could have taken more, we could have taken different.

We tried to find something that was relatively balanced. And indeed, as Ravenna has explained, There was a combination of various continents, of various size, various stories also, because some of the corridors were informal, others were very formalised with agreements, etc. So to cut the long story short, because I think I'm speaking already too much, I think the report presents some learning. I mean, we are still digesting, and indeed it's open to everyone's interest and reading. I think if I can conclude with some learning, yeah, it's— I don't want to go too far because the report is rich. And the basic rule I would say that we have learned is that there is not a silver bullet. I mean, you don't find a solution that always applies in all contexts. Nevertheless, I would say there are— I know for myself, 3, 4 points. But the first point is that indeed there are a number of barriers, and sometimes people don't see them or don't anticipate them. You learn when it's already a little bit late and people has got frustrated, or, or you are realizing that you have spending energies without getting the results you are expecting.

So one has to really sometimes get into the details and try to put yourself in the shoes of an employer, of a worker, to see the problems they have to face. And again, I named already some of them. There are linguistic barriers, there are administrative barriers, there are a lack of information, there are procedures that are not connected. Sometimes you want to do things, but you are not deploying enough resources. For instance, It's very difficult when you don't have an embassy ready to give certain papers, or an embassy on the side of the destination country, and so on and so forth. So you have to take care of the practicalities and the barriers and anticipate this. Secondly, scaling up. I mean, things can flow smoothly, but then if you want to have the good return for your investments, you need to think more broadly and prepare for the future. Getting immediate result is nice, everyone wants it, but you, you can get better results if you plan for the future. And in order to do this, you need to know what you want and you need to know what you are missing. And that applies to both origin destination country.

So an honest, uh, auto-analysis of, uh, the missing points or the things to be addressed is necessary. Thinking that questions will be solved by themselves or cooperation will fly because people are smooth, it's a little bit too optimistic. A third point I would say there is, uh, it's crucial, and this is, voilà, the last point applies very much to the talent, to the talent creation of talents, uh, and the identification of talents. Indeed, you need to, you need to have schools that if you believe that the talents are not enough for what you are expecting, you need to have schools to prepare people. If you are plenty of people that are talented but nevertheless doesn't get the jobs because you are not recognizing the qualification, you need to do something structured in order to avoid this problem. So the third problem, and probably the final, is the question of the matching, because the matching is not automatic. I mean, actually, you still have the problem of who is going to do the selections, and that's an important problem. And it depends on models. You have— you can have this done by the employers, you can have this by public services, you can have this done by private services.

You need to decide, and there are pros and cons. And in any case, you need to take accompanying or counterweighting measures, I would say, to avoid certain inevitable problems that can happen. Always ensure fairness in the process, because when you do something wrong around this, you will still have irregular channels used, which is ultimately— and exploitation, which is ultimately the things you need to avoid. I think this report helped us also to focus more on this learning. Of course, we— I cannot predict how we're going to— how we will proceed in the future. We have started by having talent partnership in some countries. Very happy Bangladesh is one of the country and the one of the speaker I think will be also from Bangladesh unless I'm wrong. And we have this done with Pakistan, with Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, and hopefully more to come. We have also other examples of cooperation. Soon we will have the legal gateway office, for example, with India. This is another approach, complementary, the alternative, we don't know. I mean, certainly we will have to continue testing the ground and adjust also to the different profession, to the different campus. I think I'll stop there and happy to come back in case of questions or comments. Thank you.

[00:33:52.17] - Kate Hooper

Thank you so much, Francesco, both for your thoughtful takeaways on the report and situating this in the broader context of what the EU is trying to do on different elements of Migration and Mobility is really helpful, I think, for the audience. I'd like to now turn over to our second speaker, Sonam Denzongpa, who's a consultant in the Emigration Policy and Welfare Division of India's Ministry of External Affairs. And thank you so much for joining us as well today. Sonam, my question for you is that India, as we've heard, is establishing partnerships with Germany and many other countries, of course, in Europe and beyond. Could you talk a little bit about why India has prioritised setting up these partnerships and what is needed to deliver on the ambitions of these partnerships, particularly when it comes to preparing prospective migrants and connecting them with opportunities overseas?

[00:34:44.09] - Sonam Denzongpa

Thank you, Kate, for your question. Right, right. So India has been signing a lot of these agreements with a lot of partner countries as early as the 1980s to basically meet the pressing needs of the countries in the Gulf region at that point in time. And over the years, there's been a change in the international labour market demands, with several countries which now face labour shortages. So now in this context, India, with its skilled, skilled, talented workforce, has been crucial in meeting these evolving needs of the global markets. And to capture these changing, changing needs of, needs of migration, we have actually, we have actually signed a lot of MOUs and MMPs with our partner countries, most importantly with countries like Germany, Italy, and the most recent being with Russia. Uh, these arrangements, uh, they provide for a streamlined movement of a vast spectrum of people, including skilled workers, students, professionals, researchers, as well as business people. And so as a part of these agreements, we also have been able to come around with specialised schemes which include young professional schemes with the UK, or when we talk of the, of the Red-White-Red and the Red-White-Red Plus scheme with Austria, or also even say the working holiday programs.

India's engagement with the EU on, on these issues has also been held under the HLDMM, which was launched back in 2006. As of now, we have had 9 rounds with them. At the 13th India-EU Summit back in 2016, both sides, they adopted the Joint Declaration on a Common Agenda on Migration and Mobility, which is CAMM, and this broadly sets out a framework to promote legal migration and address the related challenges. So HLDMM has been providing an overall mechanism for the implementation of CAMM, and to support this, um, and to support the, and to support the CAMM project, we have a technical project called the CDMM, which has been carried out, which was carried out from 2017 to 2022, wherein we had workshops, seminars, and, uh, and also, and also a lot of knowledge products were developed as a part of this project, which also includes checklists for Indian students going to the EU. Uh, yeah, so, um, so, so, as well as handbooks on the integration of Indians in France and Italy particularly. And so the Phase 1 of the project was carried out from 2017 to 2022. The Phase 2 was launched during, during the 7th HLDMM back in October 2023, with the focus on regular and irregular migration.

And some of these activities included workshops on labour market information sharing and then returns and admissions, along with an EU Blue Card checklist for skilled Indian migrants. We also had country-specific corridor studies on migration trends. And so as a part of— and so India being a part of the GCM, we continue to accord the welfare of migrants as, as our top priority throughout all these arrangements, while also meeting the demands and the needs of the partner countries. So yes, thank you so much. Thank you, Kate.

[00:38:03.14] - Kate Hooper

Thank you so much, Sonam. It was very, very helpful to understand the breadth of what India is doing on these topics, as well as, of course, the sort of motivation to really focus on the welfare of your citizens as they explore these opportunities overseas. I now want to turn to our third speaker, who has very kindly joined us from the road, so I hope that his connection holds. But Shakirul Islam is the chairperson for the Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Program in Bangladesh. Thank you so much for joining us in transit. My question to you, before we turn over to Q&A, so I'm afraid a big question in a short period of time, is that we've seen that how Bangladesh has set up systems to regulate recruitment and to register and support job seekers. But our study still found that many workers use informal channels and unlicensed recruiters to reach Portugal and other destinations in Europe. So I was wondering if you could sort of explain why we have this this situation where Bangladeshi migrants are still turning to these informal channels and how destination countries, whether in Europe or other places, could work with Bangladesh to help promote these regular channels and of course improve oversight of recruitment processes.

So, Shakirul, the floor is yours.

[00:39:21.06] - Shakirul Islam

Thank you, Kate, for inviting me in this kind of important discussion. I think it's my pleasure to bring the ground experiences from the very grassroots to this kind of international consultation. So let me start with the first part of the questions, why the Bangladeshi migrant workers do not use the system. Actually, I just want to come up with one of my experiences with the potential migrant workers. You know, OKUP is a grassroots migrant organization, so we have a lot of, you know, grassroots interventions, particularly to provide information to the potential migrant workers so that they can take informed decision. And we call it pre-decision orientation, right? So in the pre-decision orientation, we actually provide information— how can they take decision, what are the process to follow for regular migration, and how they can actually prepare themselves as a skilled migrant, right? So, uh, you know, in one of my, uh, you know, visits in one of the area in Bangladesh, uh, I found that some young people actually who participated in the Pre-decision orientations that we organised, they came to us and then they filed complaint that, you know, you people have provided all good information to us.

But, you know, after the, you know, pre-decision training, I enrolled myself in the skills training. I completed it for the last 6 months. And for the last, you know, 4 to 5 months, I'm finding a regular pathway, a regular system. And the, you know, the recruiting agencies, the licensed recruiting agencies, so that, you know, they can help me to facilitate my migration. For the job that I already, you know, gained skills from the training. And, you know, this is the reality. I mean, this is not only one of the complaints. There are hundreds of thousands of complaints from the Bangladeshi migrant workers who migrate every year to find a better job. And my point is, you know, the Bangladesh government is very good in adopting laws and policies. And for the migrant workers, they have actually, I mean, developed a very robust legal framework to follow to ensure safe, ethical recruitment and also the protection of migrant workers. But the unfortunate part is that the government actually failed to establish an institutional system by implementing the obligations that the laws and the policies and rules are in place. So that's why, you know, when the government actually took initiatives in 2014 I can remember, to create a database of the potential migrant workers.

And I can remember that more than 1.4 million Bangladeshis registered themselves to find a better way to, I mean, foreign employment. But the recruitment agencies and the other stakeholders, they didn't actually use this database. And it was actually completely useless for those who actually registered themselves for migrating abroad. On the other hand, the government has taken a lot of initiatives to convince the recruitment agencies and their associations so that they can actually register the unauthorised sub-agents under each recruiting agency so that they can be monitored and accountable. But I know that the government sat with the recruitment agencies associations one after another, they issued letters one after another, but there was no progress. My point is, I mean, yes, if the government is keen to create this kind of spaces to prepare, you know, adopt laws and policies, but they are very weak in implementation of these laws and policies. And that's why we have a lack of system. And that's why the people, the migrants, particularly the potential migrants, they actually have no opportunity to use the system that is said in the laws and policies. So this is one side. And in terms of the second part of the question, I mean, how Bangladesh and the other countries can cooperate each other and what would be a very good model for safe and ethical recruitment of workers, right?

It's really, really very complicated. And there is no one solution and there is no one size that fits, you know, all sides. So my point is, I mean, um, you know, I, I was really happy to see the recommendations, very specific, very particular recommendations from this particular resource, 4-step recommendations, right? Skills, and then ethical recruitment, visa processing, and so on, and information, right? So I mean, from my understanding, I have seen another recruitment approach that is actually followed the government of South Korea, they call it, uh, employment, um, EPS, Employment Permit System. And, uh, you know, it is really very good, instructive, and institutional system. Like the, uh, you know, interested migrants can register themselves if they have certain criteria, and then there is a, you know, primary, uh, selection process, and then the primary selected people can, you know, can appear in language test, exam, and then physical test, and then the following processes. So, but, but you know what I said, that it is not something that it fits with everybody, right? But my experience as a grassroots migrant experience over the last 20 years, I even didn't see any, you know, concrete model.

But my understanding is that it is really important to have a multi-stakeholder approach to develop transparent, accountable, and ethical recruitment practices. It's not only the recruiting agency, it's not only the employer, it's not only the governments. It's really important to bring all together, like the NGOs, the civil society organizations, the migrant organizations who have very better access to the grassroots to provide information, to educate the potential migrant workers, link them with the skills training institutions, like, you know, skills matching and recognition is really, really very important. And I really request that, you know, the country of destination, that they should come up with the investment for skills enhancement, skills matching, so that, you know, the migration doesn't consider as a brain drain always, so that, you know, the countries like ours, we can share that, yes, this is something contribution for both for the countries of destination and also from the, from the countries of origin. So the multi-stakeholder approach is really important to bring all actors. And I think it's also important to have an integrated data system. It's not only the potential migrant workers, but also we need to bring the employers, potential employers.

We need to bring the recruitment agencies so that, you know, all have this integrated system, you know, and this system can, you know, enhance transparency and accountability each other. And this kind of multi-approach also ensures social auditing, I will say social auditing, that is really, really important. Because, you know, we have seen that the blacklisting, we have seen the many processes, but ultimately, at the end of the day, This doesn't make actually any sense for the protection of the rights of the poor migrant workers who are always the victim of abuse and exploitation in the whole migration process. Right. So, so I think, yeah, that's something I really, you know, agree with the recommendations from the research. But again, I will say that it's really important to bring all the key actors together to, to introduce a multi-approach system. For this safe and ethical recruitment of workers. Thank you very much from my end. And I'm sorry I cannot open my camera because I'm on the car. I'm stuck.

[00:47:48.06] - Kate Hooper

That's okay.

[00:47:49.15] - Shakirul Islam

For the last 3 and a half hours.

[00:47:51.21] - Kate Hooper

Oh my goodness. My goodness.

[00:47:53.19] - Kate Hooper

Well, thank you so much, Shakirul, for your thoughts both on sort of the implementation gap and also the broader ecosystem that we need to support ethical recruitment along these corridors. I'm really appreciate your insights. So thank you so much for sharing them. We've had a few questions in our Q&A box, which is towards the bottom of your screen if you have any burning questions that you'd like to add for the speakers. We've had a few questions here about the talent pool and the talent partnerships. So I'll try and roll these into one and direct them to Francesco to begin. So one of the challenges of forging this common European approach is selling this to member states who, of course, have different priorities and interests when it comes to cooperating with third countries. How does the Commission sort of navigate these different priorities, and how are you making the case for a common approach in these initiatives and the sort of benefits of working together on skilled migration issues?

[[FOR THE Q&A PORTION OF THE TRANSCRIPT, SPEAKERS ARE NOT IDENTIFIED BY NAME. PLEASE SEE THE RECORDING TO IDENTIFY SPEAKERS.]]

[00:48:48.23] - Speaker 3

It's a question that is quite complex. I should say also that it's not my service that specifically deals with this. There are colleagues that could have better replied to this question that are working in Directorate-General Employment or Directorate-General Home Affairs, both related to work and labour migration in particular. But I could say that simply the Commission tries to identify first of all the wishes and the needs of the member states and to build on that. We are not doing things without or against the member states. That's, that's clear. There are member states that are interested to proceed all together, other member states that are very strong in their bilateral relations and they don't need, or they would like to have only certain areas supported or improved or coordinated but not others. And then there are also other member states that for various reasons, historical reasons, or reasons linked to labour market are not yet placing so much attention on the topic, sometimes denying the existence of an issue or not yet fully organised and up to speed in managing the topic. They understand that it needs to be managed, but they don't have yet the sufficient analysis for the labour market, their needs, or decided how they would like to address So sometimes it's very complex for the Commission also to draw the equation between these different approaches.

[00:50:30.23] - Speaker 3

So the result, the final result is sometimes to have solutions where indeed member states can join and others can stay out. So a little bit open, open architecture, I would say. But what we try to do is not to be blocked. Shocked by the fact that not all the member states have a uniform approach on the topic. We try to build on a sufficient core group of member states that are interested to proceed together, believing that others may join when they want, uh, and especially if the core group will be successful. So we try to build also on experiences and hoping to expand, but our goal is to support our member states not to challenge them. And of course, we believe that as EU, we are stronger and also better because also the others perceive us as a unity. And indeed, they will be easier to organise all this if we are better organised internally, first of all. So that's, I hope, is a reply that can work. But indeed, there would be much more to say.

[00:51:41.23] - Speaker 1

No, thank you, Francesco. That's, that's very helpful indeed. Ravenna, we've had a few questions in the chat about sort of how migrant workers themselves experience these pathways, both in terms of some of the realities on the ground when people arrive, about sort of how they access employment and their experiences and potential risks there, as well as questions about, you know, applying their skills and experiences. And that's really picking up on Francesco's earlier point about sort of how to capture those skills and potential gaps there as well. So I was wondering if perhaps you could share a little bit from our research, given that we interviewed a lot of migrant workers in different countries, about how they experience these pathways and sort of the extent to which these barriers came up in our research.

[00:52:27.09] - Speaker 2

Thank you very much, Kate. And again, that's a, that's a very interesting and large question, and I just want to preface my response with to say that we did interview migrant workers in destination countries and also in some cases potential migrants that were preparing to leave in origin countries as well as employers. But these were not representative interviews. These were sort of illustrative of the overall challenges that we saw. So we cannot make larger statements about— survey type of statements. One example I could bring up from the Indian corridor and that I found particularly interesting is that I spoke with several Indian migrant workers at different skills levels in Germany, for instance, who described their arrival process and sort of the broader conditions for them to find work in Germany, move forwards also in the career and move up. And I think that's a really important point to take away from our report as well, is that there are several challenges sort of in the attraction pipeline that's about language acquisition, skills recognition, which in Germany is extremely complicated and bureaucratic given its federal structure, as you know, and the different regulations that apply and so on.

[00:53:45.05] - Speaker 2

But then there's also a longer-term argument to be made there. And for instance, one finding that I came about is that often when there are many difficulties that arise in the first years due to not fully feeling, not fully feeling, for instance, in place or not fully learning the language, not being able to work really at the level that you had hoped to work in, that often these migrant workers make plans for other options. Right. And so there's not just a question of attracting the right workers and matching them, but then also to think more longer term and thinking about retention. Right. And so, for instance, in, again, in the Indian-German case, there were several that were highly qualified, had been working in Germany, but where, for instance, the German labour market didn't provide quite the right career opportunities for them to really project themselves long-term, or for instance, they didn't feel comfortable working in German, and so they were looking into other countries, into the US, for instance, with higher wage possibilities for instance, but also the UK or France in some cases where we can see some onward movement. So that was just one example I think that really shows how recruitment, integration, and retention sort of all go hand in hand, and that needs to be thought in a long-term way.

[00:55:08.00] - Speaker 1

Thank you so much, Ravenna. Sadly, we are at the top of the hour for our webinar. We've had some really, really interesting questions come through on the Q&A, and I apologise that we weren't able to get to all of these really, really great insights and questions. I want to first thank the audience for tuning into this webinar and then thank our speakers for such excellent interventions and thoughtful insights. An audio and video recording of this webinar will be available on our website, and the report will be available on our website as well. As you'll see from this slide here. Here's a link directly as well as the link in the Q&A chat as well. Thank you again for joining us. Any reporters on the line can contact Michelle Mittelstadt, and her email is on this slide here, and [email protected]. Thank you again for joining us and for your interest in our research, and thank you again to the audience. Goodbye.