Migration, Mobility and the EU Labour Market Recent Developments

While the share of people born in an EU Member State and living in another continued to increase modestly throughout the last decade (from about 4% in 2014 to about 4.4% in the EU’s working age population in 2024), the share of EU working age population born outside the EU increased more dynamically, from about 8% in 2014 to more than 12% in 2024. This increase became even more dynamic since 2022, a development that is only partly explained by the arrival of people fleeing Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Recent net migration flows broadly confirm established geographical patterns, with the largest flows moving from East to West and being directed to relatively large EU Member States with stronger economic outcomes and lower unemployment rates. 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. Immigration has significantly contributed to recent employment growth in the EU. Meanwhile, the broad-based rise in employment rates for all groups suggests that increased employment of people born outside the EU did not crowd out 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.