Taking the Long View: Options for inclusive post-pandemic labor markets
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Highlights
Migrants in Europe bore outsized COVID-19 job losses. Entrepreneurship, social economy pathways, and employment services reform can support a more inclusive recovery.
- Workers from migrant backgrounds in Europe were disproportionately concentrated in hard-hit sectors such as hospitality and construction, and were over-represented in precarious, non-remote jobs, raising health and economic risks.
- COVID-19 accelerated automation, remote work, and the platform economy, heightening the risk that migrants and refugees would be left behind in segmented job markets as pandemic retention schemes wound down.
- Recommendations include investing in immigrant entrepreneurship, expanding the social economy as a stepping-stone to stable work, and redesigning public employment services to maintain targeted support for newcomers.
The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in harsh effects across European economies, and uncertainty persists even as vaccination campaigns have picked up speed. EU governments’ prompt investments in historically large job retention measures have temporarily cushioned the pandemic’s blow to labor markets, but this also means that the full impact is yet to be felt.
What is clear, however, is that the crisis has exacerbated the labor market challenges some immigrant groups, such as recently arrived refugees and migrant women, were facing even before the pandemic began. Among the contributing factors are immigrants’ overrepresentation in hard-hit sectors, precarious work arrangements (such as part-time contracts and gig work), difficulties accessing social benefits, and some countries’ temporary suspension of integration supports.
This MPI Europe report explores how the pandemic has affected immigrant workers thus far and how labor market trends such as automation, remote work, and the growth of the platform economy may affect migrant integration as European economies begin to recover. It also presents policy ideas and recommendations for crafting inclusive pandemic recovery strategies.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 Struggling Now, Left behind Later? Migrant Workers in Pandemic-Hit Labor Markets
3 COVID-19 and Labor Market Change
A. Accelerated Automation, Changing Supply Chains, and Emerging Sectors
B. The Move to Remote Work
C. Growth of Atypical Work and the Platform Economy
D. New Pressures on Public Employment Support
4 Shaping Inclusive Post-Pandemic Labor Markets
A. Help Workers Cultivate the Skills to Seize Emerging Business Opportunities
B. Tap into Volunteerism and the Social Economy
C. Reimagine the Model of Public Employment Services
5 Conclusion
About the Global Skills and Talent Initiative
Anchored in the premise that immigration policy must be part of a broader skills and talent strategy, the Initiative has a particular focus on employment-based immigration and the supports that can help immigrants apply their full range of educational and professional skills.
Integration Futures Working Group
The Integration Futures Working Group convenes senior European policymakers and others to debate forward-looking integration policy through peer exchange, original research, and off-the-record dialogue to achieve better integration outcomes.
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