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Authors: Lorenzo PELIZZARI, Bianca ILLING, Maria-Josep VILLAMAYOR I VILLA, Claudia MUNCH, Neysan KHABIRPOUR (Prognos AG) Costanza PAGNINI (team leader); Liga BALTINA (FGB).
Introduction
Labour shortages in the European Union are widespread and persistent. They touch upon different strategic sectors, such as information and communication technology (ICT) and artificial intelligence (AI), construction, healthcare, transport and logistics, green-transition related jobs, and occupations that span across different skill levels. Three factors sustain this pressure: a decreasing working-age population; the green and digital transitions, which add demand in occupations already difficult to staff; and occupations where recruitment difficulties reflect poor working conditions rather than missing skills. Most hiring up to 2035 will replace retiring workers, so vacancies are foreseen to persist even where employment is stable.
Aim of the study
This study, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL), examines skilled labour mobility in the EU and its implications for territorial cohesion. It analyses labour shortages, the mobility of EU workers, and policy responses. It also examines the posting of third-country nationals (TCNs), whereby non-EU workers are temporarily sent by an employer in one Member State to work in another. The analysis aims to inform the European Parliament’s work on the Commission’s Fair Labour Mobility Package and the broader EU skills and talent agenda.
Key findings
Skilled labour mobility, regional disparities and territorial cohesion
Labour shortages in the EU are persistent, varied in cause, and present at every skill level. They outlasted the cooling of the economy after 2022, and the same occupations have topped shortage lists for a decade. Three factors sustain them: (i) the working-age population is shrinking, from 272 million in 2009 to 263 million in 2023; (ii) the green and digital transitions add demand in jobs already in shortage; and (iii) many shortage jobs offer poor working conditions. Shortage is not a single phenomenon. In some occupations the workers do not exist; in others they exist but are in another country; in others again they exist but will not accept the pay and conditions on offer. Because most future recruitment will only replace workers who retire or leave rather than fill new posts, shortages will persist even where employment is stable.
Mobility redistributes existing skills across the EU, but cannot compensate for skills that are not available in the first place. Intra-EU mobility is broadly stable. The potential for cross-border matching is considerable, as 422 of the 430 occupations in shortage in at least one Member State are in surplus in another, with healthcare being the exception. The forms of mobility that respond most directly to shortages are also the least visible in the statistics, so the contribution of posting, seasonal work and cross-border commuting to filling vacancies is difficult to be appropriately measured.
Executive summary
Mobility alone cannot solve Europe’s labour shortages: education and training are needed to develop new skills and update existing ones. In 2022 participation in adult learning stood well below the EU target of 60% by 2030, and is lowest among low-skilled adults, people outside employment and residents of economically weaker regions. SMEs face acute recruitment difficulties but often lack the capacity to train; sectoral and regional partnerships can share provision, although evidence on their results remains limited. Training and skills portability need to be supported together: wider recognition raises the value of skills to workers, but can also heighten employers’ concern about losing those they have trained, which strengthens the case for sharing training costs. Training retains people only where local jobs use the new skills and offer good benefits; otherwise better-trained workers have incentives to leave
The costs and benefits of mobility are unevenly spread across regions. The Commission’s 9th Cohesion Report identifies 46 regions, home to over 70 million people, in a ‘talent development trap’. The study’s classification of NUTS-3 regions reveals that talent losses also occur within larger NUTS-2 regions, where overall averages can mask internal dynamics at NUTS-3 level, and some regions, such as parts of eastern Germany, shrink mainly because older generations retire rather than because people leave. Regions that attract talent face different pressures: knowledge hubs such as Dublin and Vienna draw the most young people, but face strong housing pressure. This has important implications for territorial cohesion policies.
Posting of third-country nationals
The EU legal framework for TCN posting
No single EU law governs the posting of TCNs. Instead, the applicable rules span three areas: labour law; social security coordination; and migration law, creating areas of legal uncertainty. These make enforceability of TCN’s posting even more challenging. TCN’s posting is mostly concentrated in a few sectors and often at the bottom of subcontracting chains. While lower labour costs remain a driver, interviews also point to skills shortages that can only be addressed through TCNs recruitment. The scale of the phenomenon, however, remains difficult to assess at EU level because statistics record the country providing social security coverage, but not the workers nationalities. Moreover, while the legal framework is largely common, its enforcement is not. The six Member States examined in this study (Belgium, Germany, France, Poland, Portugal and Italy) apply the same EU rules but differ significantly in inspection capacity and in their ability to challenge social security certificates issued abroad. Posted TCNs can also be particularly vulnerable to abuse because of their dependence on employers for their right to remain in the EU. Nevertheless, effective practices show that stronger enforcement is possible: Belgium’s OSIRIS platform resolves most disputes over social security certificates at an early stage, while LIMOSA provides daily information on workers present at worksites; Poland allows authorities to verify certificates online; and, across borders, joint inspections coordinated by the European Labour Authority (ELA) help detect fraud, while the Fair European Labour Mobility (FELM) network provides advice to posted workers throughout their posting.
Conclusions and recommendations
Findings from both parts of the study converge on the same sectors. Construction, transport, agriculture and long-term care combine persistent shortages with a high share of posted TCNs, as these sectors increasingly use posting to fill vacancies. Three shortcomings stand out in the analysis. The forms of mobility that respond most to shortages are the least measured and monitored; poor working conditions both cause shortages and expose workers to abuse; and good practices exist at the national level, but lack harmonisation across Europe.
Tailor the response to the cause of each shortage and put job quality at its centre. The Commission should classify shortage occupations by their main cause and steer EU instruments accordingly: support for mobility and faster recognition of qualifications where workers exist elsewhere, investment in training and retention where too few are trained, and better pay and conditions where jobs are unattractive. EU co-funding for training and recruitment, for example under the European Social Fund Plus, should be linked to commitments on decent working conditions, and the forthcoming Quality Jobs Act and European Care Deal should address the most persistent shortages.
Target regional and training policies at the places and people most in need. In the 2028–2034 programming period, cohesion policy should use local indicators alongside regional ones, reserve part of its funding for the most affected local areas and adapt support to each type of region: training combined with local job creation and return programmes where young people leave, the continuity of essential services where populations age, and affordable housing and skills recognition in knowledge hubs. The Pact for Skills should adopt common standards for supporting small firms, independent monitoring and dedicated funding for its regional partnerships. The proposed Skills Portability Act should make recognition faster and cheaper.
Clarify the rules on posting third-country nationals. The Commission should issue guidance on what makes the posting of a TCN genuine, consistent with the planned requirement of three months’ prior social security affiliation, and on the proportionate limits of host-state residence checks, building on the SN and Others judgment. Building on positive national initiatives, the digital certificate planned under the European Social Security Pass (ESSPASS) should allow real-time checks and faster resolution of disputes.
Strengthen enforcement and worker protection. Posting declarations should disclose all contractors in a subcontracting chain, liability for unpaid wages should extend beyond the direct contractor in high-risk sectors, and limits on chain length should be considered. Member States should increase inspection capacity and set fines that outweigh the gains from non-compliance, while the revised mandate of the European Labour Authority should make joint cross-border inspections regular. Posted workers need multilingual counselling, with stable funding for cross-border networks. Posting statistics broken down by nationality would allow these measures to be targeted and evaluated.
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1 Comment
Eva Revilla · October 12, 2026 at 2:24 pm
Very interesting study. Thanks!