Skilled immigration flows and free mobility in France and Switzerland : Skills Research Initiative

Over the past 30 years, France, as one of the founders of the European Community (now the European Union, EU), has experienced the progressive introduction of free mobility of people with a variety of countries (rich and poor). [...] Second, between the beginning and the end of the sample period, there is no trend in the flow of skilled migrants while the flow of low-skilled declines slightly. [...] Figures 6 and 7 show the evolution of the flows for the semi-skilled and the highly-skilled immigrant workers from the rest of the world for three regions: Francophone Africa (Algeria, 16 Flows from Greece and EEA countries are not depicted because they are very small and exhibit only a small change associated with the implementation of free mobility. [...] To summarize, the key feature in the evolution of the flows of skilled immigrant workers to France since the mid 1980s is that the inflow of semi-skilled immigrants evolved very differently from the inflow of the highly skilled. [...] The progressive introduction of free mobility with the EU15/EFTA countries appears to have the expected effects from 2002 on, as there was a significant increase in the flows of immigrant- workers from the region at the expense of all the other groups of countries.