Migration and Integration: Austrian and California Experiences with Low-Skilled Migrants
Migration and Integration: Austrian and California Experiences with Low-Skilled Migrants

Author(s): Gudrun Biffl, Philip L. Martin
Subject(s): Labor relations, Asylum, Refugees, Migration as Policy-fields
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Migration; integration; Austrian; California; Experiences with Low-Skilled Migrants;
Summary/Abstract: Austria had a labor force of 4.4 million in 2015, almost 19 percent foreign born, including 60% who were from other EU countries. Many of the migrants from other EU member states in Austria are highly skilled, but they are not always employed according to their skills, particularly migrants from the new European Union Member States (EU-MS). The language barrier is one major reason for down-skilling, and another is the large difference in wages between Poland and other source countries and Austria, which attracts teachers and other professionals to jobs in Austrian tourism and care services, even if they lack training for these lower-than-average wage jobs. Austria has required non-EEA (European Economic Area) migrants since 1996 to have skills, so Austrian employers take advantage of free mobility of labor within the EU and recruit some EU-migrants from Central European countries for low-paid jobs with difficult working conditions.

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