Recopilación de Muestras de Mercado y Renta

The advent of the knowledge-driven economy and the mounting demographic challenges the EU faces have led governments to implement policies to retain the domestic highly qualified while at the same time attract foreign talent. Given that demographic challenges are felt in most advanced economies, the struggle for internationally mobile, highly qualified workers has been coined the ‘battle for talent’.

For talent from the emerging economies, the EU is still among the most attractive places in the world but it is by no means at the top. The US in particular has established itself as the leader in the battle for talent with smaller economies such as Canada and Switzerland at par. The World Economic Forum’s Competitiveness Index12 _{contains a survey-based sub-}

indicator estimating the ‘ability to attract talent’ (Figure 10.3).

12 _{See World Economic Forum, “Global Competitiveness Index”, 2017}

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Figure 10.3 Ability to attract talent

Data source: World Economic Forum.

The weighted EU27 average reaches only a score of 3.4, which remains far behind its direct competitors with a score of almost 6.0. In fact, of the major EU countries only the UK manages to breach the top 10 and is in a position to effectively compete with the US. Post-Brexit, the competitiveness of the EU will further deteriorate and the past years have not shown a substantial increase in attractiveness. More worrisome still is that new competitors are entering the stage. Foremost, China has become a new player in the talent game that competes especially on the Asian labour market but also beyond.

Why is the EU27 falling behind when its potential in terms affluence is (in many Member States) not far behind the US? The language barrier is one of the deterring factors for foreign talent; furthermore, the US is seen as providing more opportunities in terms of the business environment and lower taxation. The excellent reputation the US enjoys has many more facets, among them the low administrative burden for visa applications for highly skilled workers. The US Green Card is highly coveted and is widely known. The EU’s current Blue Card system has not been able to match the Green Card, which is reflected in the low usage and awareness, and has not had much impact on the EU’s position in the battle for talent. When launched in 2009, the explicit goals were “to make the EU a more attractive destination

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France Germany Italy UK EU27 US Switzerland Canada China

LABOUR MIGRATION TO EUROPE: WHAT ROLE FOR EU REGULATION?  81

for foreign highly skilled workers and contribute to strengthening its knowledge economy”.13

In 2014 only 38,774 highly skilled third-country nationals14 _{entered the}

EU while the US, whose population is only 62% of the EU’s, attracted ca. 200,000 highly skilled workers.15 _{The EU is either not seeking to attract as}

many highly skilled workers or is not able to recruit as many as desired via the national or the Blue Card schemes.

Another viable strategy for the EU to ensure a sufficient supply of foreign talent focuses on drawing and retaining promising students from abroad. In the US over a million international students enrolled in 2015, which represents around 5% of all students.16 _{Retaining foreign students}

after graduating from a domestic university is a useful move to fare better in the talent game. For this to succeed, two ingredients are necessary: i) attractive universities and ii) opportunities (visa)/support for students to find a job upon graduation.

The EU has many universities with good reputations, however, once again the US is the global leader and the EU is very reliant on the elite universities in the UK. The Times Higher Education ranking in 2017 shows that the US holds the pole position with 25 out of the top 50 universities.17 _The

UK is only European country with a university in the top 10 and excluding the UK18 _{the EU only boasts 5 universities in the top 50. Nevertheless, the EU}

possess numerous universities in the top 500, which illustrates the good average quality of EU universities as opposed to a just few outstanding

13 _{See European Commission, Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and}

the Council on the conditions of entry and residence of third-country nationals for the purposes of highly skilled employment, COM(2016) 378 final – 2016/0176 (COD), Brussels, 7.6.2016.

14 _{In the same year the EU issued merely 13,852 Blue Cards (nearly 90% of those by}

Germany) and many were provided to third-country nationals already residing in the EU. See European Commission, SWD/2016/0194 final (2016), op. cit.

15 _{See European Commission, COM(2016) 378 final (2016), op. cit.}

16 _{See the National Center for Education Statistics (2016) and Institute of International}

Education (2016).

17 _{See Times Higher Education, “World University Rankings 2016-2017”}

(www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2017/world- ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats).

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universities (as is currently the case for China – see Morehouse and Busse, 2014).

Improving the reputation of European universities will be key in the future to attract talent early but this is a Member State competence and the role for the EU is limited. One added value stems from granting graduates access to intra-EU mobility and an automatic, EU-wide, valid jobseekers visa. These are two rights of international students that could boost the attractiveness of the EU as a whole. The Directive on Students and Researchers is a first step in this direction in helping to develop an attractive package for foreign students.