As per a new report published by the OECD, a revamping of legal labour migration policies is on the cards if it wants to get a fair share of the global talent pool.

The EU has overtaken the United States as a destination for international students, but most of them don't stay after they graduate. Depending on the method used for calculating, between 16% and 30% stay on in Europe, which is lower than what is observed in non-EU OECD countries where more than a third of students usually stay.

Europe finds that migrants to the EU are younger and less well educated than those in other OECD destinations. Of the total pool of highly-educated third-country migrants residing in EU and OECD countries, the EU hosts less than one-third (31%), while more than half (57%) are in North America. Some progress has been made in the past decade, with a sizeable increase in the share of highly educated among recent migrants -- from 21% of the total in 2000 to 36% in 2011. But this is still less than received by North America (41%) or Australia and New Zealand (52%).

In the aftershocks of the global economic crisis EU is experiencing a decline in the overall number of labour migrants from more than a half-million in 2008, to less than 250 thousand annually since 2012. This contrasts with stable flows to other OECD destinations. But most importantly, many labour migrants are not coming to the EU under programmes for skilled workers. Among those who do, most come under national schemes, since the EU permit for highly-qualified migrants, the EU Blue Card, is hard to obtain. Only about 10 000 new arrivals would have qualified for the EU Blue Card in 2014, and of these, just 5 000 received it. In total, EU Member States covered by EU legal migration policies received annually less than 80 thousand highly qualified third country labour migrants. By comparison, Canada and Australia have annual admissions under their selective economic migration programmes for highly-qualified workers of 60 thousand each.

The report identifies three main channels through which EU instruments can help make Europe more attractive for global talent.

· First, the EU should adapt its labour migration channels to ensure that talented foreigners can choose Europe over other destinations. As is being proposed today by the European Commission, the EU Blue Card should be expanded by lowering the wage threshold, notably for youth.

· Second, the EU should simplify procedures and processes which are currently an obstacle to attracting and recruiting talents. Recognition of foreign qualifications should be simplified.

· Third, the EU should reinforce and promote the single labour market for highly qualified third country nationals.

The report is part of a joint research project by the OECD and the European Commission in response to objectives set by the Juncker Commission in 2014, which called for “a new European policy on legal migration [to] address shortages of specific skills and attract talent to better cope with the demographic challenges of the European Union [and] the legal immigration that Europe will sorely need”. The report examines the shortcomings which limited the uptake of the EU Blue Card scheme and identifies limits over existing EU instruments to manage labour migration. This report was one of the inputs ahead of the Blue Card reform presented today on 7 June 2016 by the European Commission.