The employment gap for immigrants shrank after the pandemic, but Western Europe still lags behind.
Employment outcomes improved for immigrants in many OECD countries in the wake of the pandemic. : Andrew Neel/Unsplash Unsplash licence
The employment gap for immigrants shrank after the pandemic, but Western Europe still lags behind.
Job prospects for migrants in many developed countries are improving.
Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows the differences in employment rates between immigrants and native-born residents in OECD countries in 2022.
The rates are the percentages of immigrants and native-born residents in the labour force. The labour force comprises those who are able (both physically and legally) to work in the long-term.
The average employment gap between immigrants and native-born residents is about 2.4 percentage points.
It also shrank in 2022 — welcome news for immigrants after the OECD found that the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected their employment prospects.
In nearly one quarter of countries, including New Zealand, Australia and the United States, immigrants have equal or lower unemployment. But some Western European countries, such as Sweden and Belgium, still have substantially higher unemployment among immigrants.
Employment outcomes for immigrants are a contentious topic: they are often framed in traditional and social media as either consuming welfare or stealing jobs.
European researchers who surveyed more than 10,000 adults in 2021 found that watching commercial television and reading popular newspapers was associated with perceiving immigrants as threatening.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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