IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/niesru/v229y2014i1pr3-r21.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Attracting Skilled Immigrants: An Overview of Recent Policy Developments in Advanced Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Giovanni Facchini
  • Elisabetta Lodigiani

Abstract

In this paper we review the policies put in place by the main Western destination countries to attract highly skilled migrants. Two main systems can be identified. On the one hand, employer-driven schemes typically call for the migrant to meet a set of minimum skill requirements and to have a job offer before a work visa can be issued. On the other, migrant-driven schemes typically do not require a job offer, and instead select the migrant based on a set of characteristics chosen by the policymaker. Employer-driven schemes are the dominant policy tool in the sample of countries we consider in the analysis, and only Australia, Canada and New Zealand have made migrant-driven schemes the mainstay of their skill selective immigration policy. The preliminary evidence we review suggests that the latter are more effective in increasing the skill level of the immigrant population, and casts doubts on the usefulness of new initiatives like the EU blue card that are still based on an employer-driven system.

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanni Facchini & Elisabetta Lodigiani, 2014. "Attracting Skilled Immigrants: An Overview of Recent Policy Developments in Advanced Countries," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 229(1), pages 3-21, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:niesru:v:229:y:2014:i:1:p:r3-r21
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ner.sagepub.com/content/229/1/R3.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Emanuele Forlani & Elisabetta Lodigiani & Concetta Mendolicchio, 2021. "Natives and migrants in home production: the case of Germany," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 1275-1307, December.
    2. M. Chand & R. L. Tung, 2019. "Skilled immigration to fill talent gaps: A comparison of the immigration policies of the United States, Canada, and Australia," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 2(4), pages 333-355, December.
    3. Arpita Mukherjee & Avantika Kapoor & Angana Parashar Sarma, 2018. "High-Skilled Labour Mobility in an Era of Protectionism: Foreign Startups and India," Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) Working Paper 362, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi, India.
    4. Christian Dustmann & Giovanni Facchini & Cora Signorotto, 2015. "Population, Migration, Ageing and Health: A Survey," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1518, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    5. Mathias Czaika & Christopher R. Parsons, 2017. "The Gravity of High-Skilled Migration Policies," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(2), pages 603-630, April.
    6. Senyo Dotsey, 2023. "Foreign Healthcare Workers and COVID-19 in Europe: The Paradox of Unemployed Skilled Labour," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-14, April.
    7. Breschi, Stefano & Lawson, Cornelia & Lissoni, Francesco & Morrison, Andrea & Salter, Ammon, 2020. "STEM migration, research, and innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(9).
    8. Juan Luis Manfredi-Sánchez, 2020. "Sanctuary Cities: What Global Migration Means for Local Governments," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-16, August.
    9. Brunello, Giorgio & Lodigiani, Elisabetta & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2020. "Does low skilled immigration increase the education of natives? Evidence from Italian provinces," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    10. Botrić Valerija, 2016. "Attitudes Towards Immigrants, Immigration Policies and Labour Market Outcomes: Comparing Croatia with Hungary and Slovenia," Croatian International Relations Review, Sciendo, vol. 22(76), pages 5-28, October.
    11. Gvozdeva, Margarita A. (Гвоздева, Маргарита А.) & Kazakova, Maria V. (Казакова, Мария) & Lyubimov, Ivan L. (Любимов, Иван) & Nesterova, Kristina V. (Нестерова, Кристина), 2017. "Immigration, school system and Human Capital [Иммиграция, Школьная Система И Накопление Человеческого Капитала]," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 40-57, February.
    12. Brunello, Giorgio & Lodigiani, Elisabetta & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2020. "Does low-skilled immigration increase profits? Evidence from Italian local labour markets," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    13. Katrin Oesingmann, 2016. "Arbeitsmigration aus Drittstaaten nach Deutschland – ein Überblick über das aktuelle System, Einwandererzahlen und Hauptherkunftsländer," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 69(13), pages 44-48, July.
    14. Kühn, Manfred, 2018. "Immigration strategies of cities: local growth policies and urban planning in Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 26(9), pages 1747-1762.
    15. Ramona Schmid, 2023. "Migration and wage inequality: a detailed analysis for German metropolitan and non-metropolitan regions [Migration und Lohnungleichheit: Eine detaillierte Analyse für Deutsche Metropol- und Nicht-M," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 43(1), pages 147-201, April.
    16. Manish Pandey & James Townsend, 2017. "Prior host-country work experience and immigrant labor market outcomes: evidence from Canada," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-22, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Skilled immigration; immigration policy;

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    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:sae:niesru:v:229:y:2014:i:1:p:r3-r21. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/niesruk.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.