Portuguese National Report Integration Of High Skilled Third Country Nationals In Europe A New Proposal For Circular Talent Management

From a negative net migration for decades, Portugal shifted to an immigration country in the end of the 20th century. The first immigration flows were dominated by unqualified workers, mainly coming from African Portuguese Speaking countries (PALOP) that were former colonies. There are reports of some highly skilled immigrants that arrived in the 1990s, mainly from Brazilian and EU origin. The first time that Portugal truly started to face the challenge of receiving immigrants with higher education that were overqualified for the activities they were performing in the labour market was in the beginning of the 21st century with the arrival of Eastern Europeans. The Portuguese experience with different immigrant flows in the past three decades highlighted the existence of three different groups of highly skilled immigrants: the first of highly qualified immigrants at entrance to Portugal; the second composed by immigrants acknowledged as highly skilled after a process of equivalences and/or recognition of qualifications or after achieving a higher education in the Portuguese education system; and finally a third with potential highly skilled immigrants. The characteristics and specific needs of each group lead to challenges in integration policies and in the protection of rights, pressuring for the definition of new legislative pieces and the opening of new support services and programmes. The report highlights the developments of the past ten years in the policies (e.g. recognition of qualifications, action plans for immigrant integration) and measures (e.g. support offices to highly qualified immigrants; special programmes for the combat of overqualification of immigrants in needing professions such as the health sector) defined, targeting highly qualified immigrants in Portugal. Although Portugal did not yet transpose the EU Blue Card directive, since 2007 the Portuguese Immigration Act has foreseen two special legal titles for highly qualified immigrants’ entrance. Furthermore, several bilateral agreements have been defined between Portugal and other countries to either answer to specific needs of the Portuguese labour market (e.g. to bring health professionals) or to consolidate friendship and cooperation relations (e.g. arrival of students and professionals for additional training). As highlighted in the report, the challenges and vulnerabilities that highly qualified immigrants face in Portugal are mainly linked to whether immigrants’ qualifications are being used or not in the labour market, and/or being officially recognised or not. Hence, the integration needs and problems of the highly qualified immigrants in the country are characterised by four possible ideal types of highly skilled immigrants: (A) immigrants that have their equivalences recognised and are using them in the labour market; (B) immigrants that are working in higher education professions although their qualifications were not officially recognised; (C) immigrants that although had their qualifications recognised in Portugal are not using their education in the job they have; and (D) highly qualified immigrants that do not have both the recognition of qualifications and the use of them in the labour market. The differences of these four Ideal types raise different opportunities, challenges and integration needs for the immigrants. As discussed in the report, although the legal framework that defines the possibilities of the official recognition process of qualifications and equivalences is very important; it is furthermore relevant to analyse how the country is effectively using immigrants’ skills in the labour market (or, in contrast, is wasting human capital gathered with no costs to the country) and/or if it attracts highly skilled immigrants. The report concludes with a discussion on whether Portugal will be an attractive country to highly qualified immigrants in the future, to answer to the demand of certain professional sectors, when it is presently facing the emigration of Portuguese professionals that are unemployed due to, among other reasons, the fragile economic situation of the country

The literature has identified several explanatory typologies of highly skilled migration. Although those typologies tend to oversimplify reality they are useful for discussing policy implications and integration needs that different highly qualified migrant groups might have. This article analyses a typology of three different groups of highly skilled immigrants in Portugal: (1) highly skilled immigrants at entrance; (2) immigrants acknowledged as highly skilled after a process of recognition of qualifications or after achieving a higher education in the Portuguese education system; and (3) potential highly skilled immigrants. The characterization of these three groups allow to debate how the Portuguese opportunity structure – social, economic, legal and institutional frameworks – interfere not only in the effective integration of highly skilled immigrants in the country, but also on the attractiveness of the country for hosting those immigrants. The article analyses both the impacts of the Portuguese immigration acts (with a special visa for highly skilled immigrants since 2007 and transposition of the Blue Card Directive after 2012) and the results of measures and programmes that have been developed by public and private institutions targeting these immigrants.

The European Commission aims at defining a shared outlook on immigration issues striving to ensure third country citizens rights and responsibilities similar to those of European Union citizens. However, each Member State enjoys the prerogative of defining its own integration policy. The resulting diversity of integration policies is, alongside the very plurality of inflows, one of the factors that most affects the actual quality of the integration of immigrants in the EU. But the situations in EU countries display similarities as well as differences. This conjunction of similarities and differences may be regarded as an added-value, since it makes way for understanding which policies work better in which settings. Thus, by exchanging information on policy measures and good practices we improve our chance of obtaining better future global results in the whole of the EU. In this light it can be plainly seen that finding comparable indicators between different countries is something that will not only contribute to a better monitoring of both the immigration and integration processes, but also help improving the policies developed in these domains. Since the current project does not belong to the scope of basic research, but is instead an application of social science methods to a social problem with the purpose of aiding public policy, it becomes particularly relevant to know which policy documents, on a European level, circumscribe the field of integration. In the end of 2004 the European Council formulated the Common Basic Principles for the immigrant integration policies in the EU.1 This document states that Integration is a dynamic, two-way process of mutual accommodation by all immigrants and residents of Member States (p. 17). This is the definition of integration that will be adopted at this stage of the current work. More recently, this statement was repeated in the Common Agenda for Integration - Framework for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals in the European Union. As to the notion of immigrant, the references abound. Some authors define immigrant as someone that enters a country where he or she does not reside with the intention of becoming a resident (Garson et al., 1999: 21). Others give this concept a more economic facet, defining immigrant as any foreigner that comes to Portugal looking for work or in order to fill a position that he has obtained before leaving his country of origin (Cruz Almeida, 2001: 6). These discrepancies, far from being individual idiosyncrasies, are condensed in the normative production, more or less official, of the institutions that congregate these interests. In Portugal, the National Statistical Institute (INE), for instance, acknowledges two types of immigrants: the permanent and the temporary. For statistical purposes, a permanent immigrant is an individual that has entered the country with the intention of residing here for over a year, having resided abroad for a uninterrupted period of over a year, while a temporary immigrant has entered the country with the intention of remaining here for a year or less, with the purpose of working on a paid position, having resided abroad for a uninterrupted period of over a year. The relatives and accompanying persons of such individuals are also to be considered temporary immigrants3 . However, the portrayal of the immigrant that arises from the Article 11 of the Convention no. 143 of the International Labour Organization is quite different; it is considered that for the purpose of this Part of this Convention, the term migrant worker means a person who migrates or who has migrated from one country to another with a view to being employed otherwise than on his own account4 , followed by a list of exceptions. The semantic field of the word “immigrant” is located at the intersection of the influence spheres of diverse knowledges and powers. This situation leads to the multiplication of the variables that are relevant for forming a concept of immigrant. These encompass, at least, nationality place of birth, economic purpose, residence, duration of stay, legal status and professional situation. A theoretical approach concerning the multiplicity that hides behind the concept would be appropriate for a structural analysis of the representations of immigrants, but not as a basis for a quantitative analysis of its contribution towards making integration indicators work. Due to the importance of standardizing concepts for measuring the integration of immigrants, we have chosen the pragmatic and minimalist solution (also in accordance with the subject of the funding line that feeds the current project) of identifying immigrants with third country nationals, although setting in context the legal framework that configures such “immigrants” in Portugal.

REGINE is a research project on regularisation practices in the European Union. The aim of the project is to provide a thorough mapping of practices relating to the regularisation of third country nationals illegally resident in EU Member States. Two additional non-EU countries - Switzerland and the US - will also be covered to gain insights in regularisation practices and the impact of regularisations elsewhere. In examining regularisation practices, the project also investigates the relationship of regularisation policies to the overall migration policy framework, including to protection issues and refugee policies. Moreover, the project examines the political position of different stakeholders towards regularisation policies on the national level. Finally, the project examines potential options for policies on regularisation on the European level, incorporating Member States as well as other stakeholders' views on possible instruments on the European level.

Immigration tops the list of challenges of greatest concern to European Union citizens. Such movement of people pose major challenges for policymakers. EU countries must integrate immigrants while managing often distorted public perceptions of immigration. This Blueprint offers an in-depth study that contributes to the evidence base.

Global talent has never been more mobile or sought after. A complex phenomenon that takes many forms, the movement of people with skills includes migrants crossing borders for temporary stays abroad as well as settlement, students moving for degrees and temporary and permanent stays, and even tourists and refugees who decide to stay abroad and use their skills. Countries attracting global talent increase their stock of human and technological skills, and in the past decade many have welcomed foreign professionals and students to redress domestic skill shortages and to quicken economic growth. This book includes general and theoretical papers on skilled migration and also papers on the country experiences of Australia, India, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It addresses the socio-economic and cultural challenges created by increased mobility in a world where globalizing and localizing forces are at work simultaneously

Analyses administrative simplification and e-government in Portugal, showing how e-government can be used as a lever for broader administrative simplification by making service delivery more coherent and efficient.

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.