The release of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum offers a renewed opportunity to rethink the EU’s labour migration policies. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) welcomes the EU’s invitation to contribute to the public consultation on the future of legal migration. IOM is hopeful that this exercise will feed into an enhanced EU framework on legal migration conducive to mutually beneficial and sustainable labour migration pathways to Europe and that guarantees the protection of migrant workers IOM’s submission to this public consultation proposes key considerations for an effective labour migration policy framework in the European context, building on the Pact’s proposals.

Key recommandations:

• Extend proposals linked to the admission and hiring of highly skilled workers, to low and medium skilled workers and promote entrepreneurship pathways as an additional legal pathway to attract skills and talent to the EU
• Leverage Talent Partnerships with third countries to ensure that labour migration schemes are truly mutually beneficial to all parties involved and harness the developmental potential of labour and skills migration
• Adopt a skills based approach to mobility partnerships that center at their core demand driven skills matching and skills development opportunities for migrants and their local communities
• Foster ethical and fair recruitment of migrant workers in countries of origin in line with international standards
• Protect migrant workers against exploitation and guarantee decent working conditions, including through effective remedy and redress mechanisms 
• Anticipate risks to and opportunities for migrant workers in the context of the EU’s green and digital economic transition 
• Link labour migration policy to broader social inclusion processes to ensure that migrant workers are integrated in European societies and retained within European labour markets.

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