The European Central Bank estimates, in a study released Monday, that 25% to 55% of Ukrainian refugees of working age will participate in the eurozone workforce, and may account for another 300,000 to 1.3 million workers.
In an article published this Monday by the ECB in the economic bulletin on “the impact of the influx of Ukrainian refugees on the eurozone workforce”, the central bank calculates that, taking into account “previous waves of refugees and adapting it to the actual situation, labor force participation rate is expected [da zona euro] medium term between 25% and 55% for refugees of working age.
At a time when almost seven million people left Ukraine due to the Russian invasion, a figure that could reach 10 million, the ECB predicts more than half of Ukrainian refugees will be able to participate in the eurozone workforcewith the lower end of this range (25%) based “on the level of integration observed for former refugees after two years in the host country, adjusted upwards to reflect cultural proximity to Ukraine and the impact of the swift political action. EU”, while the maximum percentage (55%) “reflects recent estimates of the participation rate of women of working age who emigrated from outside the EU at the age of 27 to the eurozone”.
Women and children make up the vast majority of these immigrants and, in these calculations, the ECB also took into account the future entry into the eurozone of men who stayed in the country to fight.
“Globally, the influx of Ukrainian refugees is expected to lead to a gradual increase in the size of the eurozone workforce,” specifies the document, prepared by ECB economist Vasco Botelho.
Specifically, these immigrants could mean an increase of between 0.2% and 0.8% of the active population of the eurozone in the medium termwhich according to the ECB article “corresponds to an increase of between 0.3 and 1.3 million in the size of the workforce”, that is, in the total number of people who are available to work in the single currency space .
The ECB stresses that the “increase in labor supply resulting from the influx of Ukrainian refugees could slightly ease the constraint on the eurozone labor market.”
Given the waves of Ukrainian migration in recent years, even before the Russian invasion of the country this year, about 75% of all Ukrainian refugees currently live in the eurozone.
“There is a significant Ukrainian community already living in the eurozone and the recent experiences of other refugees, combined with the fact that eurozone countries have the financial means to receive refugees, could encourage more Ukrainian refugees to settle in the eurozone. in the course of the year. .of time”, but this proportion “will depend on the duration and severity of the war”, adds the ECB.
The publication comes on the day that World Refugee Day is commemorated and almost four months after Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine.
Source: Observadora
