Should Eastern Europe be more welcoming to migrants and refugees?

Eastern European economies could benefit from being more open to foreign workers, according to an article in The Economist.

The article points to research published by ManpowerGroup that shows firms in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia experience difficulty filling vacancies, with the IT sector in particular facing a shortage of skilled workers.

However, the governments of Eastern Europe have been strongly opposed to EU plans to relocate refugees—a stance which The Economist says “ignores economic logic”, pointing out that refugees are often young and educated.

IZA World of Labor author Anzelika Zaiceva has written about emigration and labor markets in the new EU member states. She writes that emigration has brought some benefits in Eastern European countries—including higher wages and lower unemployment—but also exacerbated skills shortages in certain sectors, arguing that: “Policies should focus on training and retraining, better matching between skills and jobs, education reform, labor force participation, and productivity gains, as well as relevant migration and return migration policies.”

Frédéric Docquier has also written for us about the brain drain from developing countries. He writes that: “The evidence suggests that there are many more losers than winners among developing countries. Whether a country gains or loses depends on country-specific factors, such as the level and composition of migration, the country’s level of development, and such characteristics as population size, language, and geographic location.”

Read more on this story at The Economist.

Related articles:
Post-enlargement emigration and new EU members’ labor markets by Anzelika Zaiceva
The brain drain from developing countries by Frédéric Docquier
Income of immigrants and their return by Govert E. Bijwaard
Find more IZA World of Labor articles on migration here