Joint Research Centre

(Executive summary)
First introduced in 2004 in New Zealand and later adopted in Australia (2012) and Canada (2015), the Expression of Interest (EoI) system is an innovative migration management tool. Candidates express an interest for different migration programmes, each having specific selection criteria, and the EoI is used to manage case selection. EoI systems were introduced to respond to two common objectives: improving oversupply management and enhancing job matching.
In New Zealand, Australia and Canada, the EoI systems are mainly used to support skilled and permanent migration. However, this is related to the countries’ immigration systems; nothing in the EoI mechanics itself prevents their use for low-skilled or temporary migrants from abroad, or even other categories, such as employers or family sponsors.
EoI uses a pre-application phase in which potential migrants file an expression of interest that gives access to a pool, if certain requirements are met. Expressions of interest are sorted and only then candidates are able to lodge a visa application. This procedure allows the prioritisation of the most needed applicants according to different criteria (for instance, those with a job offer, or meeting certain labour market needs).
In 2015, the EoI system was used to admit 87% of permanent economic migrants in New Zealand, 53% in Australia and 21% in Canada.1 This amounts to approximately 26 000, 68 500 and 89 500 migrants.
EoI systems differ by complexity of their constitutive elements and number of supported programmes. They also differ by selection methods used to enter in the pool and to be invited to apply, and in particular in the use of point-based systems (PBS) and in the relevance of having a job or job offer.
Job matching platforms have been linked to EoI systems, allowing employers or regional authorities to view the profiles of EoI candidates and decide to sponsor them.
The available data suggests that EoI systems have been successful in reducing processing time without increasing costs, and have likely improved the quality (employability and qualification level) of candidates; however, evidence suggests that the job matching component could be improved.

This thesis addresses the following research questions: are EU Member States homogeneous in their migration policy for high and low skilled migrants? Are schemes for highly skilled workers more open than schemes for general migrants? What are the conditions explaining patterns in openness of labour migration policy and decoupling by skill level in EU countries? Which mechanism is associated to these conditions? Does the theory explain also Member States’ positions at the EU level?

The report addresses the issue of how to measure return effectiveness, which is considered as one dimension
of the wider concept of return performance. The commonly used indicators at EU level are the return and
readmission rates. While these are useful synthetic indicators, they present several limitations. The first part of
the report analyses these limitations and proposed potential ways forward. The second part provides alternative
definitions of the return and readmission rates and provides recommendations on how to integrate these with
the existing indicators

This Policy Brief reviews the implementation of the EU Blue Card (BC) Directive in Member States and offers some suggestions on how to improve its potential. Firstly, it traces back the origin of the current partitioned approach in labour migration and the objectives that an EU labour migration policy should achieve according to the Commission. Secondly, it reports on the content of the directive and its implementation in Member States. Thirdly, there is an analysis of the weaknesses of the directive in terms of numbers of BCs issued and harmonization achieved. Finally, recommendations are put forward on how to improve EU labour migration policy.