The crisis has reduced, but not suppressed shortages at both the upper and lower end of European labour markets. Yet discussions on opening legal channels for migration have been off the political agenda. In addition, there is no clear consensus on how to effectively manage admission and demand-supply matching. In this challenging context, labour management strategies are emerging throughout Europe in an attempt to ‘optimize’ the existing labour force. They include raising activity-rates and enhancing the human capital of both native and settled immigrants or by better exploiting the potential of intra-EU mobility.

Against this background, the European Policy Centre (EPC) and the Forum Internazionale ed Europeo di Ricerche sull’Immigrazione (FIERI) together explored strategies with the help of fresh findings from the Labour Migration Governance Task Force. The discussion panels, which included representatives of the EU institutions, the OECD and BusinessEurope highlighted key policy challenges and the need for a broad and dynamic approach both in research and policy-making to address labour migration governance in the EU.