Attracted, Retained, Integrated? International Graduates’ Transition from Study to Work in the EU

Description

With the EU’s working-age population projected to shrink and demand for skilled labour to increase, retaining the international students Europe has already educated is increasingly important. Yet, EU policy has focused mainly on attracting, while retaining them beyond the transition from study to work has received comparatively little attention.

Drawing on the data from the Eurograduate 2022 survey, this Policy Brief compares graduates born outside Europe with those born in the country of study and those born in other European countries. It examines three outcomes: unemployment since graduation, overeducation, and job satisfaction.

The findings reveal that even after accounting for education-related and individual characteristics, graduates born outside Europe are about 7 percentage points more likely to have experienced unemployment and 8 percentage points more likely to be overeducated. They are also about 6 percentage points less likely to be highly satisfied with their job. Graduates born in another European country fare about as well as those born in the country of study.

The Brief shows that current EU frameworks on talent attraction, integration and youth employment do not address the specific barriers migrant graduates face. These include limited residence security, weaker networks, language barriers and discriminatory hiring. Following from this, the authors recommend four actions:

• Count time spent as a student or trainee fully towards long-term residence status.
• Target migrant graduates in the next Action Plan on Integration and Inclusion.
• Set an EU retention target, backed by monitoring.
• Extend employer-facing initiatives to EU-educated migrant graduates.