UNIT 6: High-skilled migration
Reading: Recchi, Ettore. 2015. "EU Movers: How Many are There, Where are They, What do
they Do?” Chapter 3 in Mobile Europe. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
High-skilled mobility closely correlated with middle-class mobility is a relatively recent
phenomenon, brought about by globalization. Middle-skilled classes have rarely moved
(permanently) and the reason for that is that international migration is traumatic. However, it
used to be even more (traumatic) in the past, when transportation and telecommunication were
not very developed, so those with resources didn’t move. This explains why with this wave of
globalization, individuals of middle class have started to move. Mobility is less traumatic with
communications. In the past when one moved, one broke with all social ties, and now not,
because you can contact them with instantaneous programs. This makes the experience less
traumatic for them.
Other reasons why high skilled migration (middle class) has increase in the last decades…
The most important, globalization related factors is the increasing competition between firms
across the world; the firms are in a race to attract the best talent available, no matter where is he
located, and also attract him at the least cost. That’s why they offshore activities or break
administrative barriers, providing incentives for cosy, conservative skilled workers to a new
place. This is done through associations of big and small employers… These incentives are
especially high in “north” or “highly developed” countries because as we said in previous
lectures, highly developed economies have their comparative advantage in their abandons of
high-skilled workers (high value added production). In countries where low-skilled workers are
necessary, less developed countries have a comparative advantage. The barriers to the mobility
of high-skilled workers are eliminated.
Ex. Australia and Canada have used these policies. The barriers to move there as long as you
have a university degree or high qualification are almost inexistent. Also there are incentives:
most world inequalities are between country, providing incentives for high-skilled workers in
less developed countries to move to highly advanced economies. Focused in northern countries,
the reason why there are also incentives to move to other countries (in the north) is that the
middle classes of the advanced economies are the losers of globalization. The educated middle-
classes are suffering.
Who are those high-skilled workers? Professionals, managers, engineers, technicians,
academics, scientists, entrepreneurs…
However, about half of those immigrants have an intra-international mobility (intra-firm
channel); they move out of the country while remaining part of the same company.
Transnational corporations are those with branches in other countries that allows workers to
move within the same corporation. The reasons to migrate within corporations:
1. A worker’s strategy to get up in the hierarchy. Some employees think that they would
be able to get promoted if they move to another country.
2. An organized firm’s strategy.
2.a. The firm encourages their workers to get experience with the different
elements of the activity of that corporation.
2.b.Mobility is embedded/implanted in the company; as workers move up within
the company they have to go abroad, it is neither a choice nor a encourage
3. Academic strategy. Academics who in order to gather/collect the skills to succeed in a
highly competitive world, they decide to get a job in another country or to gain
experience abroad.
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