Temporary and circular migration: opportunities and challenges3 March 2011
In spite of high levels of unemployment across Europe, labour market shortages persist in a number of sectors and are likely to become more acute in the coming years as Europe’s workforce shrinks as a consequence of demographic change. The EPC’s Task Force on Temporary and Circular Migration investigated whether temporary and circular migration policies are part of the solution to sustaining Europe’s economic and social models in the future.
This Working Paper, written principally by Sheena McLoughlin and Rainer Münz with contributions from Rudolf Bünte, Göran Hultin, Wolfgang Müller and Ronald Skeldon, is the culmination of the year-long discussions within the multi-stakeholder Task Force. The paper makes a number of recommendations to policy-makers who are considering temporary/circular migration policies, presenting both the challenges (e.g. need to prevent exploitation of migrants, need to incentivise return to countries of origin) and the opportunities (e.g. the potential for development in countries of origin).Temporary and circular migration: opportunities and challenges