The influx of foreign workers has supported the economic growth of the euro area in recent years, compensating for the decrease in the number of hours worked and the decrease of real wages, said Christine Lagade, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), at the annual symposium of the federal reserve.
The head of the ECB said that foreign workers have pushed the euro area economy
Migration in the European Union pushed the population at a record level last year, despite the decrease in the number of births, but governments impose restrictions on new arrivals in response to internal dissatisfaction, according to Reuters.
Lagarde mentioned the increase in the number of workers outside the 20 countries that divide the euro area as a factor that has supported the economy of the Community block, despite an increasing preference for fewer hours and decreasing the standard of living in some sectors.
“Although they represented only about 9% of the total workforce in 2022, foreign workers represented half its growth in the last three years ”Lagarde said in a speech at the annual US Federal Reserve Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “Without this contribution, the conditions in the labor market could be more difficult, and the smaller production. ”
She said that Germany's gross domestic production would be about 6% lower than in 2019 without foreign workers and added that the strong economic performance of Spain from the end of the Covid-19 pandemic is also due to a large extent to the foreign labor contribution.
The EU population increased at a record level of 450.4 million inhabitants last year, the net immigration compensating for the natural decline of the population for the fourth consecutive year.
But this came with the price of a negative political reaction from the local voters, who were increasingly focused on the far-right parties.
Germany's new government, for example, has suspended families' reunion programs and relocating, in an attempt to regain the support of voters attracted to the alternative for Germany.
In the United States, President Donald Trump has intensified the arrests of immigrants illegally in the US, took drastic measures against illegal border crossings and withdrew the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants since its inauguration.
In Romania, according to the official data provided by the General Inspectorate for Immigration, at the end of 2024 over 140,640 employees from the European Union working in Romania were registered. Most of them come from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Turkey and India, and the areas in which they work mainly are production (29,141 employees), constructions (28,538), trade (20.008), Horeca (18,844) and administrative and support services (12.189).
