Aging Europe badly needs immigrants, report says

PanARMENIAN.Net - Europe is aging faster than any other region of the world. It badly needs immigrants. But many Europeans don't want them, Reuters believes.

The "old continent" may be able to offset the impact of a graying workforce until around 2020 by bringing more women and elderly people into work, encouraging mobility within Europe and making better use of existing migrants, EU and OECD experts say.

But in the medium to long term, the European Union will need to attract significant numbers of skilled workers from beyond its borders - and overcome growing public opposition highlighted by the rise of populist anti-immigration parties.

"If you close the door (to immigration), you will pay an economic price," says Jean-Christophe Dumont, an expert on migration at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based intergovernmental think-tank.

"For now, we can make better use of migrants who are already here, matching their skills better to labor market needs. In the longer term, it will not only be about matching skills, it will also be about numbers," he said.

Going by current trends, Europe's industrial powerhouse Germany, along with Spain and Poland, will see its population shrink from now on, slowing potential economic growth, according to Reuters.

Germany's 82 million residents will dwindle to 74.7 million by 2050 and their average age will rise to nearly 50, assuming unchanged levels of migration, according to EU statistics agency Eurostat. Some projections are even more dire, putting the German population as low as 65 million by 2060.

By contrast, Britain, France, Ireland and to a lesser extent Italy can expect healthy expansion. Britain will have overtaken the Germans by 2050 as the EU's most populous nation with 77.2 million - if it stays in the bloc - while France will have caught up with Germany on 74.3 million.

Without employment gains from migration, Europe will need an improbably big boost in productivity to sustain its living standards - or see them decline, the report concludes.