The vital role of migrant labour in Europe

Learn about EU migrant labour through the ESDE 2025 report, which highlights economic contributions, integration challenges, and European Commission initiatives to promote sustainable employment.

Migrant labour market potential

The EU is on track to reach its 2030 target of a 78% employment rate among people aged 20-64. Activating vulnerable groups, including migrants, is key to filling the remaining gap. The recent European Commission report on Employment and Social Developments in Europe 2025 notes that a total of 51 million people from various vulnerable groups have the potential to enhance the EU workforce. Of these, 7 million are migrants.

Migrants, however, still face many obstacles to participating in the labour market. Language barriers, difficulties in recognising qualifications, discrimination, lower levels of education, as well as additional care responsibilities – especially in the case of women – all stack up against their full economic participation.

The report also finds that the rate of highly educated migrants excluded from the workforce is higher than that of natives. At the same time, however, highly educated migrants express a desire to work more frequently than natives.

To enhance the labour prospects of migrants, the edition recommends comprehensive and customised approaches. Such solutions can combine, for example, language training and civic orientation, as well as upskilling and qualification recognition.

Other tools to unlock the potential of migrants include financial incentives for employers and job-search support. Simplifying work permits by implementing the EU single permit directive at the national level, for example, would also have a major impact. All these measures will also help attract migrant workers in sectors with urgent labour shortages.

Migrant labour has boosted the European economy

The contribution of migrants has proven essential to filling shortages and keeping the overall unemployment rate low, as highlighted in another Commission report published earlier this year “Labour market and wage developments in Europe“. With 2.9 million non-EU citizens in the workforce in 2023, migrants accounted for 6% of the total EU workforce, up from just 2% in 2010.

The same report finds that the number of migrant workers also increased in several shortage occupations where native employment rates declined, such as plant and machine operators.

The impactful presence of migrants in the labour market is also evident at the national level. In Portugal, for example, the number of foreign workers in the country tripled between 2017 and 2022, with the contribution of migrants to the social security system now estimated to cover 17% of the country’s national pension and retirement costs. Similarly, according to the Czech labour ministry, beneficiaries of Temporary Protection from Ukraine in some periods contributed more in taxes than the benefits they received.

EU acts to activate potential

Among the many initiatives implemented by the EU to unlock the full labour market potential of migrants, the Commission’s Action Plan on Integration and Inclusion 2021-2027 pays special attention to optimising procedures for the recognition of skills and qualifications obtained outside the EU.

The EU Skills Profile Tool for Third Country Nationals also maps the skills, qualifications, and experience of migrants, providing personalised employment advice. Available in many languages, the tool has been used by various national integration services.

The upcoming Skills Mobility Initiative will further explore possible common rules to simplify the recognition of qualifications from third countries, making better use of migrant talent. And the Fair Labour Mobility package, in addition, will ensure fair, transparent, and effective labour mobility for all, including third-country nationals.

Furthermore, funding for the integration of migrants into the labour market is also provided through Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) of the Commission. In 2024, eight new transnational projects with a broad scope were launched, including POWGEN, which works to include migrants in the renewable energy sector, WISER, which supports migrant women entrepreneurs, and INTEGRALITY, which promotes the integration of agricultural workers.