Immigration and unemployment : an European perspective

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Immigration and unemployment an European
perspective

• Manon Domingues Dos Santos
• Université Paris Est Marne la Vallée
• CREST - INSEE

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Introduction

• Does European Economy need immigrant workers?
• Population Ageing
• Sectorial and regional labour shortages
• Human capital
• ? Identify needs in labour
• Select suitable migrants

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Introduction

• Unemployment rates of natives and immigrants
• Unemployment rate of European natives 8
• Unemployment rate of European immigrants 16
• ?Are immigrants likely to meet labour needs
  ?
• Does immigration affect employment conditions of
  natives ?

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Introduction

• Theorical and empirical impact of immigration on
  unemployment in Europe
• Impact of the labour force composition
• ? Gap between unemployment rates of natives and
  immigrants
• Impact on unemployment rates by category
• ? Impact of immigration on unemployment
  propensity of natives

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1. Situation of immigrants on the European labour
market

• 1.1. Some patent disparities between communities

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1. Situation of immigrants on the European labour
market

• 1.2. Some explanations
• Productivity
• Discrimination
• ?Difficulty in estimating productivity for
  immigrants
• Answer bias
• Human capital transferability

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1. Situation of immigrants on the European labour
market

• ?At any education level, the unemployment rate of
  immigrants is always significantly higher than
  the natives one.
• ?Human capital transfert, language fluency, work
  experience , networks discrimination

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2. Impact of immigration on employment
opportunities of natives

• Segmentation or replacement ?
• 2.1.The mechanisms
• Short-run
• Néo-keynésian models
• Matching models
• ? Transitory increase in the unemployment rate
• Long-run
• Equilibrium unemployment models
• ?No impact on unemployment rates by category

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2. Impact of immigration on employment
opportunities of natives

• 2.2. Empirical results
• Spatial correlation
• Method correlation between local unemployment
  and immigration rates
• ? Endogeneity bias, natives mobility
• Results moderate impact
• Longhi, Nijkamp et Poot (2006) 165 estimations
• ?Increase of 1 in the nb of immigrants? Decrease
  of 0.024 in the employment of natives
• ?Higher impact in Europe Labour market
  rigidities ?

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2. Impact of immigration on employment
opportunities of natives

• Natural experiences
• Method political events which have induced
  exogenous migration flows
• Results
• Card (1990) Mariel Boatlift in Miami
• Hunt (1992) Rapatriates from Algeria in France
• Carrington et Di Lima (1996) Rapatriates from
  Angola in Portugal
• Angrist et Kugler (2003) Exodus from Kosovo and
  Bosnie
• ?Moderate impact but higher than with the SC
  method
• ?Higher impact on rigid labour markets

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2. Impact of immigration on employment
opportunities of natives

• Factor-proportion approach
• Method contrefactual method based on
  elasticities of substitution
• ?Sensibility to elasticities values, composition
  effect
• Results
• DAmuri, Ottaviano and Péri (2008) Germany
• ?No impact on the employment of natives but
  significant impact on the employment of previous
  immigrants.

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Conclusion

• At any education level, the unemployment rate of
  immigrants is always significantly higher than
  the natives one.
• ?Measure of skills, human capital transfert,
  language fluency, work experience , networks
  discrimination
• Invalidation of the replacement hypothesis by
  most empirical studies.
• ?The ability to absorb migrants depends on labour
  market rigidities