Labour Market Barriers and Enablers

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Labour Market Barriers and Enablers Labour Market Barriers and Enablers Comparative report on the position of post-2014 migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the labour market June 2018 Athena Belegri-Roboli, Panayotis G.Michaelides, Konstantinos N. Konstantakis, Maria Markaki, Theocharis Marinos – National Technical University of Athens Horizon 2020 SIRIUS (770515) 1 Reference: SIRIUS [D 1.2] This research was conducted under the Horizon 2020 project ‘SIRIUS’ (770515). The sole responsibility of this publication lies with the authors. The European Union is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein Any enquiries regarding this publication should be sent to us at: [email protected] This document is available for download at https://www.sirius-project.eu/ 2 Contents Executive Summary .................................................................................................. 5 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 7 Part 1: SIRIUS Countries’ MRAs Individual and Comparative Analysis ................... 14 1. SIRIUS countries’ MRAs Individual Statistical Overview ............................... 14 1.1 Czech Republic: Statistical Overview ......................................................... 16 1.2 Denmark: Statistical Overview .................................................................... 28 1.3 Greece: Statistical Overview ...................................................................... 41 1.4 Italy: Statistical Overview ............................................................................ 53 1.5 Finland: Statistical Overview ...................................................................... 64 1.6 United Kingdom: Statistical Overview ......................................................... 76 1.7 Switzerland: Statistical Overview ................................................................ 88 2. Comparative Analysis .................................................................................... 101 2.1 Demographic characteristics of foreign nationals ..................................... 101 2.2 Post-2014 Flows and Migration Management ........................................... 108 2.3 Comparative-Econometric Analysis .......................................................... 114 Part 2: Sirius Economies: Labour Market Issues ................................................... 120 3. Labour Market of Sirius Economies: Main Characteristics ............................. 121 3.1 Czech Republic ........................................................................................ 121 3.2 Denmark .................................................................................................. 125 3.4 Greece ..................................................................................................... 128 3.5 Italy .......................................................................................................... 131 3.5 Finland ..................................................................................................... 135 3.6 United Kingdom ........................................................................................ 137 3.7 Switzerland............................................................................................... 141 4. Comparative Analysis of Labour Market in Sirius Economies ..................... 144 4.1 Main Characteristics of the Labour Force ............................................ 144 4.2 Unemployment Rate ................................................................................. 148 4.3 Employment Structure by Educational Level ............................................ 149 4.4 Employment Structure by Economic Sector.............................................. 152 4.5 Employment Structure by Occupations ................................................ 157 4.6 Comparative Econometric Analysis ......................................................... 163 3 4.7 Discussion ................................................................................................... 172 Part 3: Conclusions ............................................................................................ 176 References ........................................................................................................ 179 Appendix ........................................................................................................... 183 4 Executive Summary The main aim of this report is to conduct a comparative statistical analysis of the SIRIUS database (Deliverable 1.1.) - in order to determine: i) the position of post- 2014 migrants, refugees and asylum seekers (MRAs) in the labour market of their host country and ii) the main features of the host countries’ labour markets focusing on the sectoral structure and the relevant skills and occupations. In this context, the particular goals of the report are the investigation of: (a) the MRAs flows for the SIRIUS countries and the MRAs’ integration opportunities into the corresponding labour markets; (b) the SIRIUS countries labour markets’ sectoral and occupational specialisation, and (c) the labour market determinants. To this end, the MRAs position and the labour market’s analysis is conducted at the country level, followed by a comparative report. Probabilistic Panel Data models have been employed to econometrically investigate how the flows of MRAs affect their employment opportunities in the labour market. Furthermore, Dynamic Panel Data analysis has been undertaken to investigate the determinants of labour market dynamics for each economy. The analyses of labour markets and economic infrastructure in the selected eight countries in the SIRIUS project highlight the relevance of three main factors that should be considered when developing strategies for the labour market integration of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Firstly, there is the unevenness of types of economies and labour markets among European countries, secondly they host MRAs with different educational attainments and capacities, and, thirdly the asymmetric effect of the 2008 global financial crisis and its consequences for each of the eight countries that are the focus of our research. Concerning the first aspect, SIRIUS countries reflect the diversity of economic traditions and labour market structures typical of Europe: while all European economies converge towards the tertiarisation of their economies, they do so at different paces. In other words, some countries are clearly more in tune with the ‘knowledge and innovation based’ economy-society preconized by the EU post- Lisbon strategy and its revisions inspiring the “Industry 4.0” society, while others remain in a transitionary phase in which they display elements of tertiarisation, whilst retaining strong connotations of earlier economic models. In fact, the analyses we have undertaken in the SIRIUS project reveals that the total employment in the tertiary sector (G-U) equates to 71.7% in the EU28. The corresponding figure in the Czech Republic (58.6%) is significantly lower than the EU28, closer to the EU28 average in Italy, Greece and Finland (69.6%, 72.8% and 74.2%, respectively) and higher than the EU28 average in Switzerland, Denmark and the United Kingdom (74.2%, 76.1% and 80.5%, respectively). Moreover, our analysis shows that R&D investments have a positive effect on sectoral labour in the economies of Czech Republic, Finland and UK, in the sense that R&D activities create employment opportunities in the labour market (Dawid et al., 2017). But sectoral labour in Italy decreases as R&D increases, a fact that could be attributed to the replacement of labour by innovative schemes such as patents, new production plans and machinery, etc. Such a different ‘degree’ of tertiarisation and potential for innovation mean that our countries demand, and perhaps attract, foreign workers with different educational attainments and skills, our second main finding. In fact, when we consider the level of education of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers across the SIRIUS countries we see that those with higher levels of education tend to be concentrated in the most tertiarized economies. For example, while in the UK eight out of ten migrants have reached a post-secondary education or tertiary education level, in Italy the figure is 5 only five in ten. Given the role that education has proved to play for our countries’ economic and employment growth (we show in this report that education is the stronger predictor of economic development) such a higher educated MRA workforce potential contributes for our European most-advanced economies to remain such. While countries that lag behind should consider how to develop a more education- based economy, how to enhance the level of education for their nationals, and how to attract further educated MRAs. Our results show also that the educational attainment is the strongest predictor of employment for migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers across all economies. Therefore, even in poorly tertiarised countries the more a migrant, refugee or asylum seeker is educated, the prospects of him or her being employed increase. This, therefore, suggests that a higher level of education provides MRAs with competences and skills that allow them to integrate into any type of economic context: having been educated at an advanced level facilitates their learning of a new language, eases their capacity to read and interpret the
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