Keep knowledgeable with free updates
Merely signal as much as the World migration myFT Digest — delivered on to your inbox.
Worldwide migration to wealthy international locations reached an all-time excessive final yr, pushed by international humanitarian crises and demand for staff, the OECD mentioned on Monday.
The Paris-based organisation estimated 6.1mn new everlasting migrants moved to its 38 member international locations final yr, 26 per cent greater than in 2021 and 14 per cent greater than in 2019, earlier than the pandemic introduced an enforced pause to a lot cross-border motion.
Preliminary figures for 2023 urged an additional enhance, the OECD mentioned, indicating that final yr’s surge was not solely a post-Covid rebound.
This whole didn’t embrace an additional 4.7mn displaced Ukrainians who have been residing in OECD international locations as of June this yr. There was additionally a pick-up in short-term migration for work and a document 1.9mn permits issued to worldwide college students — with the UK receiving extra new college students than another nation.
Each humanitarian and labour-related flows of individuals look set to proceed at excessive ranges, with the latter accounting for a rising share of whole migration, pushed by labour shortages throughout developed economies, the OECD mentioned.
Humanitarian migration to Germany and the US — the highest two international locations for granting asylum — practically doubled in 2022, with the biggest numbers of purposes coming from Venezuela, Cuba, Afghanistan and Nicaragua.
Labour migration via routes that might result in everlasting settlement reached a 15-year excessive in lots of international locations, the OECD mentioned, together with a doubling within the UK. There was an increase of 59 per cent in Germany, 39 per cent within the US and 26 per cent in France. Inflows to New Zealand, in the meantime, have been triple the earlier document, owing to a one-off coverage permitting short-term residence to labour-seeking migrants.
This offset the slower post-pandemic restoration in flows of staff inside the EU’s free motion space, and between Australia and New Zealand, and meant labour-related migration now accounted for greater than a fifth of cross-border motion, the OECD mentioned.
The migrant employment fee reached its highest on document, with greater than 70 per cent in work and fewer than 8 per cent unemployed — in lots of international locations, beating the employment fee of home staff.
Stefano Scarpetta, the OECD’s director for employment, labour and social affairs, mentioned the largely feminine refugee surge from Ukraine had underscored the necessity for governments to do extra to assist girls — who already accounted for almost all of immigrants throughout the OECD — enter the office.
Girls typically arrived via household channels, somewhat than as staff or refugees, Scarpetta mentioned, and this had “far-reaching penalties, as household migrants are sometimes the blind spot in migration and integration insurance policies”.
Higher entry to parental depart and assist with childcare can be key to narrowing a niche of 20 share factors within the employment fee of migrant and native-born girls — with the potential to carry an additional 5.8mn girls into the workforce, he added.