New EMN Inform: “Maintaining labour migration in essential sectors in times of pandemic”

On Wednesday, 21 October 2020, a webinar was held by the EMN and the OECD to present a new inform on the impact of COVID-19 on labor migration.

This inform examines in particular whether workers in certain occupational sectors – essential or otherwise – were exempted from general mobility restrictions at the external and internal borders of the EU resulting from policies to contain the pandemic. In addition, the measures implemented at national level, because of the COVID-19 crisis, to facilitate entry into the territory and access to the labour market of migrant workers in essential occupations/sectors are also explored. Given their importance to the labour market of many Member States, the impact on seasonal workers is also examined.

New inform shows that many Member States applied the European Commission’s guidance or adapted and/or drew on some of the occupations included in their national Guidelines to meet labour market needs. A small number of countries did not establish a list of key occupational sectors; however, measures to facilitate the admission of third-country national workers to those sectors were applied.
The majority of EU and OECD countries applied some exemptions from health measures for migrant workers in essential occupations/sectors to facilitate entry into the territory and rapid access to the labour market.

New inform can be found here.

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