Veel jonge Litouwers emigreren naar andere EU-landen (en)

Intention to migrate strong among young in Lithuania:

Well-educated men and women in the 25-34 age group from Lithuania are four times more likely to migrate to another EU Member State than equally well-educated men and women in the same age group from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia, according to new findings from research from the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. The Dublin-based EU agency's work investigated EU policies aimed at promoting and restricting labour mobility in European countries. It found similarly high levels of intention to migrate among young, well-educated men and women in Poland, Estonia and Latvia.

The pattern of future labour migration from the new Member States to the former EU15 countries is set to vary widely, while its overall extent will remain limited, the Foundation predicts. In the medium- to long-term, however, it warns that the greatest challenges lie in the impact of youth and `brain drain' for the sending rather than the receiving countries.

The research examines the different reasons why people would want to migrate. In the new Member States, work-related factors such as higher household income (59%) and better working conditions (57%), but also the opportunity to discover new things (30%), feature high on the list of priorities. In contrast, in the former EU15 countries, reasons why people would want to migrate fall into the `fun' category: discovering new environments (64%) and meeting new people (39%). A quarter of respondents from the former EU15 countries mentioned `better weather' as a serious reason to migrate.

`Geographical mobility of labour remains a major policy challenge for Europe,' says Jorma Karppinen, the Foundation's Director. `On the one hand is the concern that too little geographical mobility between regions and Member States will have negative consequences due to reduced adaptability and competitiveness. The concern on the other hand is the impact on national labour markets, both on the giving and receiving ends, arising from geographical mobility between poorer regions in Eastern Europe and richer parts of central and northern Europe."

The European Commission has designated the year 2006 as the `European Year of Workers' Mobility', designed to raise awareness and spread information about the rights and opportunities of workers who work in another country, and also to promote greater job mobility for better career and income prospects of employees. Geographical mobility also provides an opportunity for the European economy to overcome skills shortages and unemployment in certain countries and sectors.

Read more on this topic

For further information, contact:

• - 

  Måns Mårtensson, Press officer, tel: +353-1-204 3124, mobile: +353-876-593 507.