Labor shortage and economic migration – a key issue for the EU economy

Abstract

Over the past few years the labor shortage in the labor markets of the EU countries has become one of the most discussed topics along with economic migration by citizens between Member States on the one hand and by people from non-EU countries on the other. According to some Europeans, the integration of economic migrants into the economies of the host countries is the solution to the problem of labor shortage. The aim of this article is to identify and explore the labor shortage problem which is not sufficiently defined in Bulgaria and other EU Member States, and there is no harmonized European policy to deal with it and the consequences for the economy which will occur in long-term period. The role of economic migration is seen as a phenomenon and a possible solution to this problem. The study covers a three-year period from 2016 to 2018 inclusive.