Best Practices for Designing and Managing Labour Migration Corridors to Europe
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Highlights
Weak visa access, poor skills recognition, and thin worker-employer matching hobble five EU labour corridors, with targeted reforms key to unlocking shared gains.
- Labour and skills shortages across the European Union are acute: 78 percent of small and medium-sized enterprises reported difficulty finding skilled workers as of 2023.
- MPI and MPI Europe examined five migration corridors—Bangladesh-Portugal, India-Germany, Peru-Italy, Senegal-Spain, and Vietnam-Hungary—finding wide variation in recruitment practices, sectors, and skills levels.
- Common barriers include limited visa access, weak worker-employer matching systems, inadequate skills recognition, insufficient predeparture training, and risks of worker exploitation.
- Recommended reforms include streamlining visa processing, supporting ethical recruitment, investing in language and vocational training, strengthening data-sharing, and pursuing “quadruple win” outcomes for workers, employers, and origin and destination countries.
Europe is facing a looming skills and labour crisis. As societies age, and as new types of skills are needed to support countries’ digital and green transitions, attracting workers from abroad will be one important means of meeting this demand—along with investments in the domestic workforce. Left unaddressed, these gaps pose risks to Europe’s competitiveness and economic growth.
The key question is: What policies and practices can help ensure that labour migration benefits countries of destination and origin, employers, and migrant workers alike? Striving for this 'quadruple win' may call for a rethink of how prospective workers and employers are matched, how visas are processed and credentials recognised, what training opportunities exist, and more.
This report presents the findings of a study undertaken by MPI and MPI Europe researchers for the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Partnerships. It examines best practices for designing and managing labour migration corridors between EU and non-EU countries, drawing on fieldwork in five corridors: Bangladesh–Portugal, India–Germany, Peru–Italy, Senegal–Spain, and Vietnam–Hungary. The analysis considers a range of issues, including how labour migration corridors emerge and grow, ways to support skills development, and tackling worker exploitation and brain drain.
Table of contents
1 Introduction
2 Methodology
3 A Comparative Analysis of Migration Corridors
A. Who is moving along these corridors?
B. How did labour migration along the five corridors become established?
C. What are the mechanisms for connecting employers with workers?
D. How are skills needs and availability tracked and shared?
E. What skills development opportunities are available as part of these migration corridors?
F. How easily can foreign-trained workers apply their skills?
4 Lessons Learned and Opportunities for Scalability of Labour Migration Corridors
A. Building skills for destination-country labour markets
B. Matching employers and prospective workers effectively
C. Improving access to visas
D. Tackling worker vulnerability and exploitation
E. Building capacity for government coordination and data-sharing at scale
F. Mitigating brain drain and maximising the development impacts of migration
5 Conclusion and Recommendations
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.
About the Global Program
The Global Program bridges policy advice, research, and candid dialogue to design effective migration policies, drawing on global evidence and anticipating the forces reshaping how people move.
