Amid looming workforce shrinkage, Europe can get ahead by helping labour migrants and their families settle in and build their lives and careers

BRUSSELS — As Europe faces mounting skills shortages and intensifying competition for global talent, labour migration is one of the clearest levers available to help address skills gaps. The conditions and policies that attract—and retain—foreign workers are essential in addressing skills shortages Yet across 10 European countries, just 8.1 per cent of migrant workers remain with their employer for more than three years, reducing returns on investments in recruitment and training. The pressure to get this right is only set to grow, with population projections suggesting the EU workforce could shrink by up to 18.8 million people by 2050.

A new Migration Policy Institute Europe report, From Afterthought to Asset: Leveraging integration policy to attract and retain talent, offers two timely contributions to the European policy debate. First, at a time when integration has slipped down the political agenda—and, in many contexts, faced reduced funding—the report demonstrates why it should be understood as a strategic investment rather than a downstream social-policy concern. Second, the analysis addresses a major gap in Europe’s skills and labour migration agenda: the role of integration policy in shaping whether international talent chooses a destination and remains there over time.

‘Most national integration strategies as well as the European Union’s Action Plan on Integration and Inclusion (2021–2027) overlook the links between integration and skills or labour shortages, and none explicitly recognises integration’s role in attracting or retaining labour migrants specifically,’ MPI Europe analysts Jasmijn Slootjes and Abigail Goldfarb write. 

The report finds that closing this gap is a matter of redesign, not reinvention. Among its recommendations:

• Integration support should begin early and continue on an ongoing basis, rather than only once a migrant has committed to long-term residence, by which point the decision to come and stay has usually already been made.
• Responsibility should be shared across employers, government and civil society, since employers are closest to migrant workers day-to-day but have historically been treated as bystanders in integration policy.
• Support should extend to accompanying family members, not just principal workers. Nearly half of new permanent migration to OECD countries in 2024 was for family reasons, and a 2021-22 survey found that 88 per cent of partners of highly skilled workers held a bachelor’s degree or higher, yet 53 per cent were unemployed after relocating.
• Service delivery should be connected to the wider integration system, so that one-stop shops and digital platforms serve as entry points to mainstream language and integration services rather than administrative processing alone.

‘As Europe revisits its skills and legal migration frameworks, integration policy should not be treated as a downstream social add-on but rather as a strategic asset for competitiveness, talent attraction and retention, and social cohesion,’ Slootjes and Goldfarb conclude.

This report is the latest from the Integration Futures Working Group, a Robert Bosch Stiftung-supported forum that brings together senior policymakers, experts, civil-society leaders and private-sector representatives.

Read the report here: www.migrationpolicy.org/mpi-europe/publication/integration-policy-attract-retain-talent.

And for all of MPI Europe’s Integration Futures work, visit: www.migrationpolicy.org/mpi-europe/initiative/integration-futures-working-group.