This is just one of the suggestions made in new research, funded by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council, into migration patterns in Europe.
The main message of the report that the economic impact of labour mobility is largely positive, both in the home and host countries, and can improve labour flexibility in Europe.
It counters the common view that uncontrolled immigration would result in reduced average incomes, the displacement of local workers from jobs, and an increased burden on welfare services.
The research team, headed by Professor Roger Vickerman of the University of Kent, points out in its report that migration works most efficiently if migrants with particular skills can be matched with the needs of potential employers.
The report talks of the 'pressing need' for improved information on the labour markets of the EU, to be made available to potential migrants and employers.
It is critical of national immigration policies based simply on limiting numbers. Instead, the report backs 'an auction based system of migration permits, where permits are either auctioned amongst potential immigrants or their potential employers'.
Professor Vickerman believes that the EU's gradual eastward expansion, taking in the formerly communist states of the old Warsaw Pact, will produce a 'chain reaction' of migrant movements. Workers from the new member-states like Poland will seek to move to existing EU countries, while others from countries even further east, like Ukraine and Belarus, could seek to take their places.
The new research effectively explodes some popular myths and prejudices about migration. Among the findings:
- Migration does not just involve permanent relocation. Most migrants move on to new destinations, or return to their home countries.
- Migrants who go home with savings, or those who send money home in regular remittances, do not simply boost consumer spending in their home countries. Rather, they stimulate investment, often by setting up their own businesses, and returning migrants boost productivity.
- There is no difference between the motives of legal and illegal immigrants.
- Far from 'swamping' their host countries' labour markets, migrants are fulfilling a vital need. As the report puts it: 'In Western Europe, the past half century has been a period of labour shortage and net immigration which has spread gradually across all EU member states such that all are now net importers of labour. Future projections show that the decline in fertility and ageing of the population is likely to reduce the effective labour forces in the EU by 5.5 per cent by 2020'.
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