Essay: EU Migration

INTRODUCTION
Migration of individuals and whole societies are an essential characteristic of civilization. Migration form a new quality and a new form of the original human societies, create new. In the processes of creation, destruction and transformation of the States of migration has always played an important role. In some era migration was not very significant, but in others the most important factor to changing the face of civilization.
In recent years migration has increasingly become a challenge, and sometimes threat the security of personality, society, state. Migration has led to serious changes both in the receiving and giving countries. In host countries began to gain momentum xenophobia. As a result, at the turn of the century the problem of migration became the center of public attention. Migration and its regulation became the subject of sharp political debate in the world that actualizes the necessity of studying this problem. The key importance of migration in socio-economic and political processes of the States fully evident in the countries of the European Union.
Today, migration issues are Central to discussions on public policy issues at the national, regional and international levels and are fundamental to the mandate and policies of the ILO. Migration is a complex phenomenon involving economic, political and social development at the global and regional level, at the level of individual countries and individual citizens and their families. Migration can have both positive and negative consequences. This process must be managed in order to reduce the decent work deficit, which is especially clearly manifested in conditions of irregular migration, including trafficking and various forms of forced labor.
Migration is not a new phenomenon. In the process of formation and transformation of society, culture and economy, migration has played a key role. However, with all this migration, and particularly immigration, has often been extremely controversial, leading to racial discrimination and unequal treatment of foreign workers (especially illegal migrants) compared with nationals of the host country. Emigration has been less controversial, and the government saw it as a safety valve and a way of reducing poverty. All this could lead – and has led to tensions between sending and receiving countries – tensions that can be mitigated through bilateral and regional agreements developed within the context of social dialogue.
Driving factors of migration are multiple and complex, and explaining them on a global level might not always be applicable to individual migrants and their families. The Main causes of migration – poverty, wars, famine and repression, but the specific people call other reasons – demographic problems, limited resources, inequality in salaries and income in different countries, increasing urbanization, the presence of networks of migrants that contribute to the movement of labor, and the lack of employment prospects and the debts of the countries of citizenship.
CHAPTER 1. INTERNAL MIGRATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION. AN ANALYSIS AND ASSESSMENT.
1.1. The causes of internal migration in the EU.
One of the main criteria of attractiveness of a country for migrants is the level of prosperity of countries and the possibility of good earnings, and European countries on these characteristics are significant.
However, the choice of a migrant of a country for relocation or temporary residence in Europe depends not only on purely economic considerations. Other important factors influencing the choice of destination country, include:
1) Historical ties between the countries
a) Colonial past;
b) Belonging to the former Empire;
c) The existing system of recruitment of migrant workers.
2) The Existence of migrant networks;
3) Conduct country repatriation programs;
4) The Possibility of obtaining a humanitarian migrant status;
5) Knowledge of the language of the country;
6) The Possibility of a mediator involved in trafficking (assistance) migrant when moving.
It is the multiplicity of factors supports the relative stability of inter-country migration ties, which have not changed significantly in the last 50 years of the twentieth century.
So migration flows from the South to the North spawned a longstanding relationship with former colonies and former metropolises, which are stored and maintained until now. Therefore, the ethnic composition of the flows to many countries of Europe is directly linked to the number and ethnicity of migrants from their former colonies: for example, from Algeria and Morocco to France, from India and Pakistan to the UK, from Suriname to the Netherlands from Somalia and Ethiopia for Italy, etc. The direction South-North in the EU is the reminder about the colonial past and the later legacy of employment first at the southern periphery of the EU (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Yugoslavia), and then in North Africa. The basis of this migration flow is currently comprised of Algerians, Turks, and Moroccans.
The consequences of organized sets of guest workers to Western Europe (since the early 50-ies) affect and that after the collapse of these programs, the migrants remained in the country, and this stimulated the process of family reunification and the formation of new Diasporas, or “new minorities”.
Affiliation in the past of a country to the countries that form the three major European empires (Russian, Austro–Hungarian and Ottoman), also still affect the direction of migration flows, regardless of whether the country belonged to in the recent past to socialist or the capitalist camp.
Repatriation is another type of migration flows from East to West and from South to North. Throughout the previous century and in the early 21st century this type of migration is present in the European countries that have historically of their countrymen, as minorities in other countries. The largest Diaspora outside of their countries in Europe are the Russians, Germans, Hungarians, poles, Greeks, Turks, and Jews.1
The absolute number of migrants over the past 50 years, the main centre of gravity is Germany. It takes 36, 2% of all migrants attributable to the EU. Followed by France (18.7 per cent) and the UK (to 11.35%). These three countries attract 63.6 per cent of all migrants heading into the EU. Then come Switzerland (6.9%) and Italy (6.3%) and slightly behind Belgium (4.2%) and Spain (4.0 percent). However, most recently the largest flow of migrants heading to Spain (balance in 2003 594, 6 thousand people) and Italy (balance 511 thousand) and with five pace Germany, UK, Turkey and Russia (100 thousand in each country).
Throughout 15 years after disintegration of socialist system Germany remains the main country of migration for countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), accounting for 64.4% of the total emigrants from CEE countries. In the first three countries along with Germany are Switzerland and Austria, these three countries are 76, 9% of all CEE migrants, followed by Italy and France.
Oppositely directed external migration from Western Europe to CEE. Generally go for young qualified specialists, representatives of different companies. They form in the CEE countries about 10% of the total number of foreign migrants.
Throughout the post-war decade for Europe, as the continent as a whole, the trend of two main migratory flows: from East to West and from South to North. Within a major migration flows there are considerable changes in their intensities in a particular country and, most importantly, the ethnic composition of migrants, forming these threads.
The ethnic composition of migrants has varied considerably from decade to decade. In addition, for each of the countries of Western Europe are characterized by a certain ethnic structure of the received migrants, which is largely dependent on the colonial past, the major supplier countries of migrant workers in 50-60 years and repatriation flows.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the main migration in continental Western European countries, migrants who were from Italy, Spain, Greece, Yugoslavia and Turkey. Britain at this time took almost the entire flow from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In 60-ies of the 45% of all Africans leaving Africa, heading to France, three times fewer in Italy, Germany, UK and Spain.
In 70-ies the main flow of migrants was mainly through the channels of family reunification, mainly from Turkey, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. In the 1980s it was joined by migrants from the Middle East, South America, and the direction of migration flows is gradually shifting from the core of the European Union on its periphery, in the Mediterranean countries.
Since the end of 1980-ies and 1990-ies Europe starts to welcome refugees and migrants from CEE and the Balkans. This thread by the end of the 90s more and more become the flow of labor migration, the share of labor migrants from CEE countries in the total flow is constantly increasing. In the early 21st century the ethnic composition of the flows to many countries is changing. So, in the Mediterranean countries, traditionally dominated by migration from Africa, Turkey. Currently these countries receive more migrants from Ukraine, Moldova, Albania, and more recently from Latin America. By 2003, the main ethnic groups of migrants in Spain were Ecuadorians, Colombians, Romanians and Argentines, not the Moroccans. In Italy it was found that out of 705 thousand applications for legalization in the first place by number of applications were immigrants from Romania (20%), Ukrainians (15%) and only 8% of applications were filed by the same Albanians and Moroccans. In Portugal, the Ukrainians beat the Brazilians. In Greece the Albanians are still the dominant group, but the proportion of immigrants from the CIS has been growing steadily.
Changing the ethnic composition of migration flows to the UK, Ireland and Sweden, where already allowed to work migrants from the countries — new members of the EU and where the last year has increased the flow from these countries (Hungary, Poland, and the Baltic countries).
Gerd Nebensatz, 37-year-old doctor from Germany, was never inclined to change places, and certainly not going to move to Norway. Losing their jobs and joining the ranks of 10 000 unemployed doctors in Germany, Noblest start sending out those resumes to nearby hospitals. Receiving no answer, he decided to expand the scope of the search and applied for a job at the best hospital in the country — to no avail.
In a medical journal Dr. I came across an ad about opening several positions in Norway. He phoned a Norwegian employer, discussed the situation with family and decided.
After three months of intensive language courses, Nebensatz with his wife and three children went to the city of Grong with a population of 2,500 people situated 300 miles from the Arctic Circle.
Career Dr. Nebensatz is not an exception but rather a rule for a new Europe. Former couch potatoes the Europeans are becoming more mobile. This is especially true for 20-30 year old professionals with University degrees.
Why Europeans have become more mobile, the Reasons of the new European “mobility” diverse: from high unemployment in France and Germany until the economic boom in Ireland and Spain.2
Another significant reason is the ease of job search through the Internet and the adoption of a single currency. With the advent of the Euro, many multinational companies have begun to close offices in individual countries and create a unified throughout Europe headquarters.
Small firms do not lag behind them, picking up the staff of experts with knowledge of specific languages and cultures. And yet the mobility of labor speaks primarily about the arrival on the market of a new generation. Young professionals grew up and studied at a time when Europe was moving toward a unified market and a common currency. Moving to another country does not mean for them the acceptance of failure at home — getting work experience abroad, they believe the key to success.
“In the last ten years has increased the number of people travelling in Western Europe, says John salt, head of the Institute for migration at the London University College. A significant portion of these trips are made in career goals”.
Mobility Europeans are far from Americans. According to the census Bureau of the U.S. population, about 5% of all American families have at least once in five years moving from place to place due to change of work. Although the comparative analysis for Europe were not carried out, economists believe that this figure will be much lower.
Obviously, the language barrier and the impossibility of transferring the pension to another country impede migration.
Cultural barriers come to naught, however, such obstacles seem less embarrassing for those who are just starting their careers. Silvia Arto, 27-year-old Spaniard working in the Paris office of the French Bank\’s Coral. Last year Sylvia came from Pamplona and submitted to the Bank for the position of marketing Director on the promotion of the Internet brokerage services operating throughout Western Europe. Of the 20 employees of the marketing Department, five from abroad and the Bank is going to recruit two more people from other countries of Western Europe.3
“Corral in I feel at home — with a smile says Sylvia, — the Bank has a multinational, multicultural team. Many say the actor with different accents. And I don\’t miss Spain”.
Today, when monetary policy 11 member countries of the EU are regulated by a single European Central Bank, individual countries of Europe cannot fully independently to soften the force occurring at them from time to time of economic turmoil. The possibility of voluntary migration of employees to a place where they have a job, has been for EU countries hereby a safety valve.
In addition, after January 1 this year, the European monetary Union companies increasingly perceive Europe as a truly unified market, not as a free Association of independent States. The result was not long in coming: the company started the optimization of its activities.
Companies create a unified headquarters in Europe for Example, the American Xerox Corporation has recently decided to establish in Dublin a single European headquarters. Partly this decision was based on favorable business climate and low corporate and social taxes in Ireland. However, the main reason in the quest to optimize and consolidate the company\’s operations in Europe.
A network of independent subsidiaries that Xerox is organized in European countries, in the last match chosen by the company to the way of doing business. “However, now that a company like Alcatel wants to buy our products in seven countries, she wants to not have to deal with seven different companies, owned by Xerox, and one,” says John Xerri, chief of staff of the Dublin office.
Now in the North Dublin builders hastily erected several office buildings for 1,700 Xerox employees.
About 40% of them will be foreigners, because companies need people fluent in several European languages and well versed in such things as national accounting. In Dublin will work 650 accountants and other financial experts, 250 managers and 800 employees providing maintenance.
Claudia Striga, 30-year-old accountant from the German city of Freiburg Breisgau, looking for a job in a large international company. In March after receiving an offer from Xerox, she gathered books, CDs and a few pictures and moved to Dublin. Now she supervises 20 people from 13 countries are engaged in financial counseling remaining representative offices in European countries. One of the main tasks of Claudia at this stage is to assist the office in Dusseldorf: it is necessary to bring its accounting in compliance with the General standards of the Corporation.
Man seeks better. Theoretically, people leave the country, where little work is, where it is abundant. They need to overcome language and other barriers, including external borders of the European Union. It happened with our hero Nebensatz, and in addition, with hundreds of physicists from Germany, France and Austria, which over the past year and a half moved to Norway. According to the employee of the Norwegian Ministry of labor Ann-Charlotte Hollander, by the end of the year, the number of physicists who have moved to Norway from other countries, should reach 200. The Ministry of labor intends to attract about 800 representatives of this profession.
In two years of existence, the program of the national Department of employment had received 720 enquiries from scientists. More than 500 of them from Germany.
Norway is also a shortage of nurses, the Department will launch a pilot program to attract nurses from Italy, where at the moment they are more than enough.
Today, partly thanks to the Internet, European applicants may find work in the most remote corners of the continent. Free access to information makes people more mobile, say European analysts.
Employment agencies from 17 countries exchanged lists of vacancies through the Eures network of the European Commission. Since 1996, the number of international job listings increased by 30% to 150 000. The number of vacancies increased by 40% and amounted to 500 000 per year.
4 The company providing the want ads for a job through the Internet, are experiencing an unprecedented influx of applicants. The Madrid representative of a travel company Amadeus Global Travel Distribution, which has branches in France, Germany and the United States, claims that the number of people willing to get a job in the company has increased five-fold after Amadeus gave the announcement through the network.
And 70 percent of these applicants — inhabitants of Europe.
1.2. The phenomenon of the internal migration in the EU.
The post-1945 period is marked by the continued migration within the EU. Today, one in three migrants lives in Europe. All Western European States accept more migrants than it sends to other countries.
The majority of migrants arriving in the member States of the Organization for economic cooperation and development (OECD), have a diploma of secondary or higher education.
In 2005, immigrants constituted 8.8 per cent of Europe\’s population.
The highest ratio of immigrants to total population were observed in Western Europe (11.9 percent), Northern Europe (9.3 per cent), Eastern Europe (7.5%) and southern Europe (7.2 per cent).
In the 1980s, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Finland were the countries-recipients of migrants in relation with the increase in the level of economic development and a more strict migration policy in other European States.
One of the factors of growth of labor migration in a number of European States have become new employment opportunities for certain categories of migrants, especially highly skilled specialists. There has been a growing flow of labor migrants to Ireland, Italy and Portugal.
According to the International centre for migration policy development, the average number of new undocumented migrants is 1800 people per day. In 2007 the volume of non-permanent flows of migrants in the 15 original member States of the EU amounted to 650 thousand people.
In the report Frederick Richner, Director General for employment, social Affairs and equal opportunities of the EU, it is noted that between 1997 and 2002 in a period of economic growth the number of employees in Europe increased by 12 million people.
Despite the fact that the share of migrants was less than 5% in total employment in EU countries, their contribution to GDP was 15%. In contrast to the General opinion that migrants are mainly employed in low-skilled jobs has increased employment of migrants in the sector of semi-skilled and high-skilled workers, where employment among the local population is also high. At this time, the number of semi-skilled migrants increased by 50%, and highly qualified — twice.
The report says that in the last three years there has been a slowdown in the economic development of the EU. The average employment rate in the EU stands at 63% (in the U.S. — 72%), and for migrants is significantly lower. For the EU the goal was set to achieve in 2010 employment rate of 70%. To do this, in the EU-25 is needed by 2010 to create over 20 million jobs (including in the EU-15 countries — 15 million) that looks problematic.
At the same time, it is expected that the total number of people of working age between 2010 and 2030 will be reduced on average by 1 million people a year. Therefore, even if we assume that the employment rate stabilized at 70%, but there will be increasing migration, it is likely that economic growth in the EU will fall to 0.5% per year, and GDP growth per capita is also significantly reduced, which can affect the competitiveness of the EU economy. All demographic findings reads very pessimistic about the fate of Europe, if the migrants would not come. Politicians also complain about these circumstances, however, understanding the need to attract migrants was not accompanied by changes in migration policy.
Statistics show that the number of arrivals of labor migrants, and the accumulated number is growing in almost all EU countries (Fig. 5 and 6). However, their migration policy is in General not very hospitable. Now migrants is very difficult legally to get into the labor market of the desired countries. The main methods of legal residence in the EU limit the possibilities of legal employment for many categories of migrants. In Western Europe officially can be accessed through certain channels:
• Family reunification;
• Refugee status (looking for asylum);
• Repatriation;
• Training;
• Highly qualified staff of transnational corporations and international organizations;
• Personal contracts;
• Own business;
• Labor migration (on the basis of international agreements):
Seasonal work; cross-border migration; trainings and invitation of the teachers; quotas for certain skills or activities.
But many of these channels do not give the right to work, even if the migrant and allowed to stay in the country. So, the first four channels do not allow quick legal access to the labor market. The first three bands do not allow to select migrants according to their qualifications. Employment opportunities were also delayed, and for family members of all categories of migrants, the possibility of contact with legal labor market is more problematic, since the presence of the work permit of one of the spouses of migrant workers does not apply to members of his family.
Thus, complaints of officials of the European Union on the low level of employment of migrants are primarily associated with the politics of the European Union. She pushes migrants to illegal labor activities, despite the fact that the UK needs to fill 600 thousand vacancies, and Portugal and Spain have even started a special program to attract migrants from Latin America, which from the point of view of culture, language, tradition, historical ties them closer than African countries. The report notes that some groups and generation of migrants better integrated in the labor market. Migrants from Balkan countries and Eastern European countries have even higher employment rates than natives.
The hierarchy of countries in attractiveness for labor migrants, coincides with the distribution of the number of migrants. On the first places again are Germany, France, UK, and then Italy, Spain, Switzerland. In those countries that have conducted Amnesty program, the number of labor migrants has increased several times. In Greece, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Germany, Luxembourg and the UK in the period 1995-2002 were legalized 2.5 million people.5
In the EU-15 the number of officially registered labor migrants amounted in 2003 about 17 million people. Experts believe that a significant inflow of migrants from the newly acceded countries, in “old” EU countries is expected. According to sociological surveys, no more than 5% of the population of these countries expressed a desire to move to the West. However, this does not apply to intent with respect to temporary labor migration. However, while accession to the EU gives these countries the right of free access to the EU labor market. Now they can get on the market only a few countries — the UK, Sweden and Ireland. A year after the accession of new countries, 230 of thousands of migrants from them received permission to work in the UK, 128 thousand in Ireland and 16 thousand in Sweden. For the remaining EU-15 newcomers have to go through the same procedures as other foreigners.
Perhaps some feel much better in Europe immigrants are highly qualified specialists. In particular, the EU has embarked on a policy of attracting permanent residence to those foreigners who have graduated from universities of these countries and found they work. Now almost in all European countries the graduates of local Universities and found jobs with high earnings, given a residence permit. Especially such opportunities are for specialists in the field of information technology. Germany issued the first of 1,500 “green cards” out of an estimated 10.4 thousand for such specialists. The same path followed by other countries in the EU.
The number of foreign students in the EU is steadily increasing, only between 1989 and 1999, it grew from one thousand to 887, 6 1061, 1 thousand people. The largest number of foreign students study in the UK — 227 thousand people, Germany — 219 thousand, France — 165, 4 thousand people (in Russia — 70, 2 thousand).
Of all the migrants officially working on contracts in EU countries, Russian specialists are characterized by the high proportion with higher education (47% of all formally employed, with a median of — Europe — 25%). The lowest level of education are distinguished migrants from southern Europe, Balkans and candidate countries.
The issue of migration in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is complicated by the recent enlargement of the EU. Free access of citizens of new countries – EU members on labor markets of countries (the former EU-15) is limited, with some exceptions, the period from two to seven years. The fact that the original forecasts on fears of mass migration proved to be unfounded, may lead to revision of these restrictions, as happened in the early stages of EU enlargement, when the Alliance included Greece, Portugal and Spain. In the case of these three States \’ accession to the EU was the promotion of economic growth and revenue growth, which prompted the citizens of these States who migrated to other European countries, to return home. Active emigration of the General population in various EU countries in the early 1990-ies reduced the rate of population growth and has reduced its numbers in some States. Many of the new member States of the EU, except for Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, have now become countries of net immigration.
Given the fact that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, it is obvious that in the near future will face shortage of labor, they, like States, who will join the EU in 2007, simply do not have the demographic potential for large-scale emigration to Western Europe (Munz, 2004). Indeed, studies show that in the next five years, migration from new countries-EU members to EU-15 will amount to only 1% of the population of the new member countries of the Union, or slightly more than 200 thousand people per year. Although the income per capita in new member countries of the EU are still much lower than in the EU-15 and unemployment is high, yet, as expected, the migration be moderate, if not low. In contrast, in new member States there is a significant influx of migrants, the citizens of CIS (especially Belarus, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation and Ukraine) and some countries in Asia use them as a springboard for entry into Western Europe.
At the same time, a serious problem was the emigration of highly skilled professionals, negatively affecting long term economic development. Limited opportunities are forcing young professionals to emigrate. And yet in countries growing awareness of the need to improve the management of migration flows in order to protect citizens going abroad, and reduce their vulnerability. Many countries have put in place structures that promote the movement of people and labor migration through legal channels.
The migration of talents is seen as a brain drain, because those who left, never to return, supporting little or no academic ties with their countries. In this regard, in recent years the situation began to change. Many immigrated representatives of the academic community retain close ties with their countries, maintaining scientific and academic relationships with colleagues and institutions at home. Moreover, some have made a career abroad come back with the improvement of working conditions at home.
But most often academic workers return home for lectures or consulting, cooperation in research with colleagues or as visitor’s professors. Under the influence of the Internet these connections more and more become accepted and productive. Migration of academic talent in a variety of ways supported by industrialized countries, extract from this process a considerable advantage. And indeed of their immigration policy in some cases is intended to encourage such migration.6
Brain drain brings donor States losses which, although not as obvious as the damage from natural disasters or man-made disasters, but their size often even surpass it. Their calculations require analysis of numerous negative consequences of emigration and the application of sophisticated techniques. With all this, it is possible to obtain a very conventional results, however, and they allow to judge about the scale of the damage to the national economy harm.
The main motive of international migration personnel – employment more profitable than in the country of origin, conditions. In addition to economic motivations, migration is also conditioned by considerations of a political, ethnic, cultural, family, and others.
Within the EU countries is annually observed internal migration flows a large number of people; leadership scale immigration hold Germany, France, and UK. More local regional center attracting migrants to call Australia.
The demand for highly qualified personnel in developed countries is determined by the needs of their economies, the rapid development of information technology.
Germany initiated a program to attract foreign students, researchers and professionals in information technology. In particular, in 2000, pledged 20 thousand “green cards” for recruitment from abroad of experts in Informatics – at the end of 2001, 10 thousand specialists of this profile moved to Germany. In the EU, the shortage of information technology professionals is estimated to number 1.7 million people.
CHAPTER 2. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE INTERNAL MIGRATION IN THE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.
2.1. General characteristics of the internal migration in the European countries.
The transition to a market economy had enormous consequences for the development of labor markets in many countries of Central Europe and the Baltic States, including the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. At the beginning of the transition period in these countries there was almost no official unemployment existed egalitarian wage system.
Structural reforms have led to a sharp decline in the number of jobs, unemployment growth and inactivity of the population.
By the mid-1990s which has begun in most of these countries, economic growth had almost no effect, however, on the level of unemployment. In some cases, unemployment continued to grow and in the late 1990s due to sharp economic recessions and failure of macroeconomic policies aimed at restoring macroeconomic equilibrium and support structural reforms. On the eve of the EU enlargement in 2004 in most countries, the unemployment rate was significantly higher than the EU average, while in Slovakia and Poland is much higher than in any other country of the European Union.
Such significant and persistent differences in unemployment rates between the countries of Central Europe and the Baltic States are of particular concern.
Sustainable regional disparities partly indicate a lack of flexibility of the regulatory mechanisms of the labor market. Correction of regional imbalances may take place through several channels:
In regions with high unemployment can be expected to reduce wages, therefore, the prospect of higher returns to labor and their low cost should attract more companies to the region and to promote the expansion of employment by existing firms.7
If the factors of production (capital and labor) react to differences in the level of unemployment, capital should flow into lagging regions, where production costs are lower and labor should migrate from regions with high unemployment and low wages in regions where pay is higher.
Government action aimed at addressing regional imbalances could take a variety of forms.
Overall, capital flows to Central Europe and the Baltic region is not conducive to the elimination of regional disparities in the labor market. In particular, capital generally moves in quickly developing regions where a high level of concentration of economic activity and human capital. Wages to a certain extent corrected, but the measured elasticity (in absolute terms) may be insufficient to compensate for sustained high unemployment.
In addition, the sensitivity of the wage to the unemployment rate may decrease as unemployment rises so that at a very high level of wages can be extremely low. Because the regulatory mechanisms have been ineffective in reducing regional differences in unemployment rates, an important factor may be the mobility of labor.
Our findings are based on survey data of the labor force (LFS) 2004 and several rounds of International social studies, as well as summarized information from a survey conducted by Euro barometer. We consider only internal labor migration, which, however, may have an impact on the results because international migration may substitute internal.
In these countries the level of domestic migration is low, moreover, migration has decreased during the period under review and is in General at a lower level than in the “old” EU members.
In addition, migration at best, weakly related to regional unemployment. The level of commuting (i.e., commuting to places of work, study in other areas) is higher than the usual level of migration, but varies significantly across countries. In 2004, commuters accounted for 1% of all workers in Poland and 10% in Hungary. Conversely, the proportion of internal migrants did not exceed on average 1% of all workers.8
According to some data, the level of commuting increasing.
It is not surprising that the level of conventional and pendulum migration is highest among men, young people, highly educated groups, singles or divorced/widowed. In Lithuania and the Czech Republic of the person receiving education or advanced training, also more likely to be pendulum migrants. It seems that commuting is prevalent among the employees of large companies. Regarding previous experience of work commuting may facilitate the exit from unemployment. However, according to available data, in the Czech Republic and Hungary less likely than the unemployed migrate.
It is obvious that, at least in relation to internal labor migration, skilled workers are better able to benefit from opportunities to find work in other regions than the unemployed. The presence of certain skills is also of importance: the representatives of certain occupations or industries are much more mobile others. For example, agricultural workers are typically less mobile than workers in the service sector or industry. At a more detailed level it can be stated that construction workers are more prone to migrate than workers in education and health.
The reasons for the growth and preservation of regional disparities in the unemployment rate:
First, in General, in contrast to the circular migration, regular migration is poorly linked with regional economic performance.
Secondly, commuting, rather than internal, may facilitate exit from the state of unemployment, because the unemployed and the inactive in the labor market are more likely to choose commuting. The probability of migration is only weakly related to the level of