What are the pros and cons of labour migration?
The EU is struggling with labour shortages. Migrant workers and asylum seekers would be able to fill this gap and solve many of these problems. But, says economics professor Olaf van Vliet, the pros and cons regarding this dilemma need to be explicitly addressed. 'Now the message in campaigns focusses solely on more or fewer migrants.'
'I would like election campaigns to give a more complete picture of the pros and cons of labour migration,' Olaf van Vliet tells Dutch newspaper FD. 'In the coming years, the Netherlands alone will have hundreds of thousands of vacancies. For the short term, labour migration could be a part of the solution.'
What are the benefits of labour migration? Van Vliet names more profits for employers, a growing economy, more tax income for the government, and cheaper services due to wider availability.
'If a politician calls for less labour migration on the grounds of the scarcity in the housing market or high population density, he should also add that the GDP may fall as a result,' Van Vliet believes.
More information
The above quotes are from a small excerpt of a larger article that was published in Dutch newspaper FD. Want to read the whole article (in Dutch)? Then visit the FD website.
Image by Tim Mossholder via Unsplash