Unterfranken attracts fewer skilled workers than most regions in Europe

The battle for talent within the EU is a story about both brain drain and gain. Of the 17 million people aged 15–64 migrating within the EU¹, around 4.5 million are highly skilled workers and students. Factors known for attracting these people from their home regions are economic growth, higher wages, robust social security, linguistic and cultural similarity, relatively easier access to the labour market and higher employment rates.²

In contrast, the brain drain phenomenon arises when a region can not compete and suffers a permanent loss of skilled workers or students.

Unterfranken is a “receiving” region, with more people moving in than out. In 2017 the net migration rate was 5.2 persons per 1,000 inhabitants.

A positive net migration means that more people are moving in, than out. A negative value means that the region is losing population. Net migration includes, in this case, both domestic and international movement.

Receiving regions are generally found in northern areas of the EU, e.g Sweden, Ireland, Estonia, Denmark and the UK.

The battle for the brains

The nature of the migration flows differs considerably across Europe. Some regions attract and gain highly educated workers, while others lose them. In this section we look closer at the education level of the newcomers, compared to the domestic population. Do the migrants⁴ affect the supply of skilled labour?

These are some of the key findings for Unterfranken:

• Europeans that have moved to Unterfranken have about the same education level as the workers born in Germany (22 percent of EU movers have higher education).
• This level makes Unterfranken an unfavoured recipient of highly educated migrants compared to other European regions. ⁵

Lower employment than domestic workforce

In general, highly educated workers in the EU that have moved to another EU country find employment at more or less the same level as the domestic workforce.

In Unterfranken the employment rate for highly educated newcomers is lower than the rate for workers born in Germany (84 percent compared to 88 percent among all educated workers in Unterfranken).

What about the future? Reports on the modern knowledge economy say that high skilled immigration will continue to boost economic growth in the attractive regions. Income differentials combined with differences in living standards between regions will remain the primary driver of economic migration. The demand for skilled labour is robust. By 2025 nearly half of all new expected job openings in the EU is expected to target highly qualified workers⁶.