Annual report on intra-labour mobility 2021
The report identifies trends in the free movement of workers, based on the latest available data (2020/2019).
This edition also includes findings on the impact of COVID-19 on mobility, when mobility growth came to a halt during the pandemic.
In 2020, 13.5 million Europeans lived in another EU country.The main EU country of destination for EU movers is Germany followed by Spain, Italy and France. Romania, Italy and Poland were the most important countries of origin of mobile workers.
The report shows that mobility is mostly not a lifetime-decision. Many of them return after having gained some years of professional experience abroad. Return mobility is sometimes as important as outward mobility
The share of high-skilled EU-28 movers continued to increase: in 2020, 35% EU-27 movers was high-skilled, compared to 30% in 2016.
The main findings of the report are summarised in the Intra-EU labour mobility at a glance paper.
Annual report on intra-EU labour mobility 2021 (website European Commission)