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19 February 2021

Annual report on intra-EU labour mobility 2020

Title
The European Commission's Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion published its 2020 annual report on intra-EU labour mobility. It provides up-to-date quantitative information on labour mobility trends in EU and EFTA countries, in order to ensure better implementation of initiatives supporting the right of workers to free movement. 
 
The report addresses a variety of topics, according to current developments and policy needs. Specifically, it focuses on the mobility of high-skilled EU citizens and the impact of demographic change on prospective mobility flows across the EU. The data analysed within the report refers to working-age citizens (20-64 years) in the EU.
 
Key findings of the publication include:
  • Intra-EU mobility continued to grow in 2019, but at a slower pace than in previous years;
  • The stock of EU movers (EU citizens who live in an EU Member State other than their country of citizenship) of working-age grew by 1.2% in 2019, considerably
    less than the 3.4% growth of 2018. This is mainly due to large decreases of stocks of movers in the UK;
  • Just under half of all EU movers (46%) reside in the UK or Germany, and a further
    28% in France, Italy and Spain. Of sending countries, Romania, Poland, Italy,
    Portugal and Bulgaria are the countries of origin for 58% of movers;
  • Active EU-28 movers constitute 4.2% of the total labour force in the EU-28. Looking at EU-27 only, the share of active EU-movers in the total workforce is 3.7%;
  • Net mobility for nationals remained negative in most EU countries, meaning that more nationals are leaving their country of origin than returning to it. The exceptions in 2018
    were Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland and Malta;
  • Return mobility increased slightly in 2018, constituting 65% of all outflows of nationals. This means that for every three people who leave their country of origin, two return;
  • In 2019 there were 1.5 million cross-border workers within the EU-28 (a decrease of 0.6% in comparison to 2018);
  • The employment rate of EU-28 movers rose by one percentage point to 78% in 2019, and unemployment stagnated at 7%. As in 2018, the employment rate in 2019 was 3 points higher than for nationals, and the unemployment rate was 1 point higher;
  • In 2019 the share of movers working as professionals (18%) was similar to that of nationals (21%).

EU-28 movers in EU-28 and EFTA countries in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the total working-age population (2019):

Map of Europe with percentage of people who move for each country.

Source: Annual report on intra-EU labour mobility 2020; Eurostat data on population by citizenship and age group, extracted 2020.

The report finds that the main sectors of employment for EU movers in 2019 were manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, employing 15% and 12% of EU-28 movers, respectively, and 16% and 13% of nationals. EU-28 movers are underrepresented in public administration and defence, education and human health and social work activities, and considerably overrepresented in accommodation and food services, construction and administrative and support services.

Access the full 207-page report online here, or find it attached below.

Annual report on intra-EU labour mobility 2020
English
(4.55 MB - PDF)
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Details

Authors
Siöland, Linus; Jones, Matthew; Fries-Tersch, Elena
Geographic area
EU Wide
Original source
Posted by
Olivia Long
Content manager

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