As European countries seek to revive their economies in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, an acute labor shortage in a variety of sectors risks stopping the recovery in its tracks. Challenges recruiting truck drivers, warehousing workers, and other logistics staff have hobbled already strained supply chains. In the United Kingdom, these constraints (which exacerbate trends set in motion by Brexit and the end of free movement) have recently resulted in empty supermarket shelves and long lines for fuel. Efforts by the hospitality industry in France, Germany, and other European countries (and their counterparts in Canada and the United States) to recover from prolonged closures or furloughs have also sputtered as employers struggle to recruit enough restaurant and hotel workers. And the pandemic has added to longstanding difficulties recruiting and retaining health- and long-term care workers because of low pay and challenging working conditions.

While many of these labor shortages are not new, the pandemic has made them worse in a couple of ways. First, the public health measures introduced to slow the spread of the virus and the ensuing economic downturn displaced many people from their jobs, especially those working in more precarious or low-paid roles. As business resumes, employers must meet the costs of hiring and training new workers and incentivize past employees to take up these roles anew.

Second, the pandemic has also upended the supply of available workers. The past 18 months have seen some workers opt to change professions in search of opportunities that are better paid, more stable, or offer safer working conditions. Meanwhile, the pandemic prompted some immigrants to choose to return to their country of origin. All of this is happening while ongoing travel restrictions and public health measures have impeded intra-EU mobility and immigration from third countries, spelling trouble for sectors in which immigrants tend to be over-represented, ranging from food production and hospitality to health care.

Read the full article about immigration policy by Kate Hooper at Migration Policy Institute.