Many of us have a positive and innovative vision of a prosperous Europe, but to implement this we must address the problem of our broken immigration system. Europe’s population continues to age significantly. Besides that, according to the OECD’s Skills for Jobs database, at least 80 million workers in Europe are mismatched in terms of their qualifications. And furthermore, a European Commission study found that one-third of the EU labor force has no or almost no digital skills.
To quote Eurochambres President Leitl, “We are sleep-walking into a highly damaging socio-economic crisis.”
We are realizing this just at the very moment Europe enters the biggest global talent race the world has ever seen, whereby the global talent shortage will cost the world economy 8.5 trillion dollars by 2030. Japan alone will be missing 18 million people from its workforce.
Well, I have news for you: without talent and without improving our immigration system, Europe will not be able to compete on the global stage, however hard you wish for it.
For businesses across Europe, hiring foreign talent takes months, sometimes over a year and the European Union is acting as if talent is not welcome here, while businesses are struggling to survive in the global competition.
To change, we must acknowledge that we are not doing enough to make ourselves attractive to the talent that’s out there. Just one in four highly educated migrants residing in the OECD in 2015-16 chose the EU as their destination, while almost two out of three chose to settle in North America or Oceania.
We also need to understand that the barriers we have set up mean that when migrants do choose to come to the EU the process is far too complex. Unpredictability along with overly tight migration regulations are among the greatest deterrents to jobseekers moving to the EU.
According to economist Enrico Moretti of Berkeley University, every highly skilled job indirectly creates five other jobs in a community. So, every day that we turn back a skilled migrant due to slow immigration processes or ridiculous bureaucracy, we are costing our community five jobs. This is crushing our businesses, particularly SMEs.
In my lifetime, I have witnessed my home country, Estonia, going from rags to riches by reinventing what a country is and how it can operate. Imagine if Europe could reinvent how immigration works by adopting a system where immigration for skilled talent happens in a matter of seconds, not months.
When it is supported by smart policy, migration is an economic force that contributes to sustainable growth. Technology should be able to assess and guide talent seamlessly into countries. This is something Jobbatical works on every day, but it can only go so far without governments joining the effort.
By rethinking borders, we could create so much opportunity for humanity to work together for a better future for us and our children. When it is supported by smart policy, migration is an economic force that contributes to sustainable growth.
This is a guest post from Karoli Hindriks, founder and CEO of Jobbatical.
