Migration, Mobility And The Euro Area Labour Market: Recent Developments

The share of foreign-born people in the working age population of euro area countries increased dynamically since 2014, reaching 20% in 2025. The increase was especially dynamic for people born outside the EU, and especially since 2022. This development is only partly explained by the arrival of people fleeing Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. In 2023-2024, the largest flows of net immigration were observed in Spain and Germany. Net migration to these countries amounted to about half of the euro area total over this period. Immigration has significantly contributed to recent employment growth in the euro area. Meanwhile, the broad-based rise in employment rates for all population groups suggests that increased employment of people born outside the EU did not diminish the employment prospects of native-born workers. It has rather permitted to ease labour supply bottlenecks in a context of decelerating working-age population growth and sustained demand for labour. Gravity equations estimating the determinants of mobility flows suggest that the ability of intra-EU relocation flows to serve as a channel of economic adjustment in the EU has continued to increase in the last decade.