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November 15, 2007 - Richard Donkin
The movement of people seeking work in Europe is becoming a difficult issue for governments, confused far too often with immigration concerns of the past that are muddying the political and economic debate.
It sometimes seems that half the world has been sitting on suitcases waiting for the opportunity to seek a better life somewhere else. Economic liberalisation in China has led to mass migration from the farming hinterland to the more prosperous coastal regions creating a need for urban development and planning on a grand scale.
But employment-led migration in Europe is a different story, characterised by temporary concerns as young or unemployed people living in poorer parts of the continent seek out higher earnings in wealthier states, often sending home to dependents the surplus from their wages.
There are so many Polish plumbers and construction workers in London I was moved to ask a recruiter recently if he knew just who was doing this kind of work in Poland these days. “Oh, the Poles are employing Ukrainians now,” he said. So who does the plumbing in the Ukraine?” I asked. “The Turks are doing that,” he said. This is the snake effect of labour migration that finds its tail in the poorest countries.
The cause-and-effect of labour migration is felt at both macro levels – where migration has stimulated business growth in some regions – and at micro levels where pressure on housing in localised areas is creating a strain on public services. There is a clear tension here for policy makers who some politicians believe have focused too heavily on economic benefits without taking full account of social and cultural consequences or of the added pressures on public services.
These tensions in policy, sometimes inflamed within a media that is only too willing to expose historic racial sensitivities and xenophobic sentiments, means that work-led migration has become one of the more controversial consequences of European Union enlargement.
While some may argue that migration is sucking away the best and the brightest from poorer countries, others can point to greater direct labour sourcing among companies willing to transfer some operations to areas of cheaper labour.
Demographic statistics would appear to justify the growth of labour migration in countries such as Italy, Germany, Spain and the UK where the indigenous working populations have been squeezed by declining birth rates and aging populations. Germany and Italy have the second and third oldest populations in the world, respectively, behind Japan.
Indeed the German, Spanish and French governments in the past year have introduced financial incentives for couples to have more children; an extraordinary move in a world where global population is rising to what some fear is an unmanageable level.
In the UK debate has become clouded by confusion over migration statistics. The UK government was forced to issue an apology for underestimating the number of migrants working in the UK, admitting that more than half of new jobs created between 1997 and 2007 had gone to migrant workers. Some 1.5m foreign workers had come to the UK according to the Department of Work and Pensions.
Behind the political disputes over migration, however, is a powerful business lobby that is focused on ensuring a supply of skilled and productive workers, no matter what their background. Many companies have enthusiastically recruited central European employees on the basis of their abilities, commitment and willingness to work hard.
A recent British Council study of integration polices among the 25 EU member states found that Sweden had the most migrant-friendly policies and Latvia the least. The top ranked nations for integration were Sweden, Portugal, Belgium, The Netherlands and Finland. The five countries accounting for half of the EU's 21m migrants among an EU citizenship of more than 450m – France, Spain, the UK, Germany and Italy - were all ranked mid-table.
A perfect European economy, perhaps, would embrace relaxed attitudes to migration and more flexible working arrangements mixed with some regulatory protection for workers' rights. But movement towards such an economic base must also take in to account technological innovation, changing social patterns and shorter business cycles.
Earlier this year Jim Murphy, then the UK's employment and welfare reform minister, told a London seminar that the “shelf-life” of skills in the UK had gone from seven to eight years down to three to five years. This kind of change underlines the need for individuals to perfect a capability to adapt if they are to maintain their value in the labour market. But policy makers must be alive to this need.
Too often, in the past, labour market policy has been moulded by historic concerns, rather than those of the present. The mentality of job creation within the Lisbon agreement is typical of such concerns. Labour markets must be focused on the needs of a vibrant economy and that must include the social concerns of individuals and the way they relate to the workplace.
In doing so it is important that governments look beyond traditional concepts of the permanent long term job fed by a continuing supply of skilled young males. If the European economy is to succeed in its desire for greater harmonization of labour supply it must create a platform for encouraging a more diverse approach to employment, particularly in the way that employers relate to the aging workforce, ethnic minorities and women.
Vladimir Spidla, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities has rightly highlighted legal, administrative and linguistic obstacles to worker mobility. A number of studies have revealed a desire for cross-border working opportunities among young people and such mobility should be encouraged.
At the same time it should be recognised that these needs will be tempered by political pragmatism. The skills-based points system for dealing with labour migrants announced in the UK could prove popular elsewhere. But closing borders to foreign nationals among EU states would be a retrograde step in economic reform. The new European labour market must extend opportunities for all throughout the union.
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