New interactive tool maps legal pathways to the EU for foreign job seekers

Europe, like most other high and middle-income regions, is ageing rapidly. The decline of its working age population has led to growing labour shortages – a challenge shared with other regions of the world, which is likely to intensify international recruitment efforts.

The European Commission has been working with EU countries to expand labour migration pathways, as part of its overarching approach to migration management and its focus on reducing irregular migration. The Pact on Migration and Asylum which includes the new Talent Partnerships model, as well as the EU Skills and Talent Package of 2022 and the Skills and Mobility Package of 2023, are just the latest iteration of the EU’s commitment in this area.

Mapping legal pathways to the EU

Through its Migration Partnership Facility, the Commission has developed a new interactive tool to help identify existing and safe pathways to labour migration.

The tool allows users to browse through different pathways for all 27 EU countries, filtering through different requirements such as languages, labour market quotas, and income, for instance. It is meant as a visual aid alongside the European Centre for Development Policy Management’s research, mapping some 290 pathways across the EU, in early 2024. 

Background

The Commission has been striving for a more strategic approach to legal migration, focused on channelling workers towards locations and occupations experiencing skill shortages.

To this end, the Commission has put in place, among others:

• Talent Partnerships with several countries, including Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia, to create legal migration opportunities for non-EU citizens;
• The EU Talent Pool proposal, to develop an EU-wide digital platform helping employers identify and recruit non-EU workers and focusing on occupations that are in shortage across the EU;
• Labour migration directives, to develop a harmonised set of rules for labour immigration, including the recast Single Permit Directive (adopted in 2024), the revised Blue Card Directive (adopted in 2021), the Seasonal Workers Directive, and the Student and Researchers Directive;
• Investments in labour mobility schemes, through the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) and the Migration Partnership Facility (MPF).

Find out more

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