Immigration status and labour market integration

While recent research has underlined the importance of immigration and integration policies in understanding the immigrant pathways of socio-economic inclusion, little empirical analysis exists on the labour market experiences of migrants admitted through different immigration channels (e.g. labour, family, asylum, study). This paper addresses this knowledge gap. It begins with a conceptual discussion on how migration policies influence the size, personal and professional attributes, and access to the labour market of the different immigrant categories. My empirical analysis builds on the 2008 Ad-Hoc module on migrant workers of the EU Labour Force Survey which offers the unprecedented opportunity to break down the migrant workforce by immigration categories approximating status on arrival. Regression analyses are used to ‘isolate’ the impact of the immigration route as a determinant of economic inclusion. Results show that immigration status on arrival affects the labour market outcomes in terms of both economic activity and access to an employment commensurate to the migrant skills, with family migrants and refugees retaining a disadvantage in almost all EU destinations. I conclude by reflecting on the implications of different national admission systems for the migrant labour market integration.