IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/crm/crmrep/2606.html

Employment of Immigrants in the European Union: Progress, Persistent Gaps, and Untapped Potential

Author

Listed:
  • Christian Dustmann
  • Tommaso Frattini
  • Camilla Piovesan

Abstract

Employment among immigrants in the European Union has reached its highest level since 2017, yet important differences remain across origin groups, countries and demographic characteristics. While EU immigrants frequently match or exceed native employment rates across Member States, substantial employment disadvantages remain concentrated among non-EU immigrant women and highly educated non-EU immigrants, pointing to significant untapped labour market potential.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Dustmann & Tommaso Frattini & Camilla Piovesan, 2026. "Employment of Immigrants in the European Union: Progress, Persistent Gaps, and Untapped Potential," CReAM Reports 2606, ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin).
    • Handle: RePEc:crm:crmrep:2606
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rfberlin.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/employment_report.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Dustmann & Tommaso Frattini & Ian P. Preston, 2013. "The Effect of Immigration along the Distribution of Wages," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(1), pages 145-173.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gordon Hanson & Chen Liu & Craig McIntosh, 2017. "The Rise and Fall of U.S. Low-Skilled Immigration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 48(1 (Spring), pages 83-168.
    2. David Card, 2009. "Immigration and Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 1-21, May.
    3. Osea Giuntella & Fabrizio Mazzonna & Catia Nicodemo & Carlos Vargas-Silva, 2019. "Immigration and the reallocation of work health risks," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 1009-1042, July.
    4. Berbée, Paul & Brücker, Herbert & Garloff, Alfred & Sommerfeld, Katrin, 2022. "The labor demand effects of refugee immigration: Evidence from a natural experiment," ZEW Discussion Papers 22-069, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    5. Lewis, Ethan & Peri, Giovanni, 2015. "Immigration and the Economy of Cities and Regions," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 625-685, Elsevier.
    6. Sascha O. Becker & Thiemo Fetzer, 2018. "Has Eastern European Migration Impacted UK-born Workers?," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 376, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    7. Susanne Prantl & Alexandra Spitz-Oener, 2020. "The Impact of Immigration on Competing Natives' Wages: Evidence from German Reunification," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(1), pages 79-97, March.
    8. Benjamin Elsner & Jeff Concannon, 2020. "Immigration and Redistribution," Working Papers 202024, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    9. Martin Guzi & Martin Kahanec & Lucia Mýtna Kureková, 2022. "The Impact of Immigration and Integration Policies On Immigrant-Native Labor Market Hierarchies," MUNI ECON Working Papers 2022-12, Masaryk University, revised Feb 2023.
    10. Daniel Monte & Roberto Pinheiro, 2021. "Labor market competition over the business cycle," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(4), pages 1593-1615, October.
    11. Howley, P.; & Moro, M.; & Waqas, M.; & Delaney, L.; & Heron, T.;, 2018. "Immigration and self-reported well-being in the UK," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 18/12, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    12. Alexander Patt & Jens Ruhose & Simon Wiederhold & Miguel Flores, 2021. "International Emigrant Selection on Occupational Skills," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 1249-1298.
    13. Nicolò Gatti & Fabrizio Mazzonna & Raphaël Parchet & Giovanni Pica, 2023. "Opening the labor market to qualified immigrants: a double-edged sword for native employees," IdEP Economic Papers 2201, USI Università della Svizzera italiana.
    14. Thiemo Fetzer, 2019. "Did Austerity Cause Brexit?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(11), pages 3849-3886, November.
    15. Engdahl, Mattias & Willis, Sébastien & Åslund, Olof, 2024. "Professional networks and the labour market assimilation of immigrants," Working Paper Series 2024:9, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    16. Brücker, Herbert & Glitz, Albrecht & Lerche, Adrian & Romiti, Agnese, 2021. "Integration von Migrantinnen und Migranten in Deutschland: Anerkennung ausländischer Berufsabschlüsse hat positive Arbeitsmarkteffekte (The integration of immigrants in Germany: Formal recognition of foreign occupational qualifications has positive l," IAB-Kurzbericht 202102, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    17. International Monetary Fund, 2016. "United Kingdom: Selected Issues," IMF Staff Country Reports 2016/169, International Monetary Fund.
    18. Hayo, Bernd & Roth, Duncan H.W., 2024. "The perceived impact of immigration on native workers’ labour market outcomes," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    19. Hiroaki Sakurai & Kenji Nozaki, 2025. "Pull Factors of Immigration in Thailand: GDP, Economic Disparity, Poverty, Unemployment, and FDI," Bulletin of Applied Economics, Risk Market Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 175-182.
    20. Stephan Kampelmann & François Rycx, 2016. "Wage discrimination against immigrants: measurement with firm-level productivity data," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-24, December.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:crm:crmrep:2606. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Moritz Lubczyk (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmucluk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.