Economic and business conditions

National and international migration laws determine the legal or illegal status of a migrant. For any given legislation the number of illegal migrants depends on the social-political and economic conditions of the sending countries and on the organizations which favour frontier transit, but also on push-pull forces in the host countries.

1. Fostering innovation and entrepreneurship is a national policy priority in the vast majority of Member States. This is due to the perceived beneficial impact of entrepreneurship on economies, including job creation; fuelling economic growth and investment; and boosting competitiveness in the globalised knowledge economy. 2. In 17 Member States, attracting innovative entrepreneurs and start-ups from non-EU countries forms part of a general strategy to promote a vibrant entrepreneurial culture. In the rest of the Member States, although fostering innovation and entrepreneurship is a general priority, they do not focus on attracting entrepreneurs from third countries. 3. Thirteen Member States have specific admission schemes in place (mainly residence permits and/ or visas) for start-up founders and innovative entrepreneurs from third countries. With the exception of Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom, the majority of the schemes are still in their infancy, having been introduced in the last three years. 4. A special visa and residence permit to admit third-country national start-up employees currently exists in Cyprus, Estonia, France and Portugal. In the Netherlands, a pilot scheme for key personnel will be introduced in 2020. 5. The design and set up of the start-up schemes differ significantly across the Member States, with a wide variation of admission conditions relating to both the business and the start-up founder. Common to all schemes, however, is that they target a specific type of business, i.e. those that are innovative, scalable and/or with an added value for the national economy and business environment. 6. From those thirteen Member States which have a specific scheme in place, eleven Member States require submission of a business plan. The business plan typically includes information related to the business activity, product or service, market analysis and sources of financing, and is evaluated by a special committee. 7. In 2018, the highest number of applications for start-up schemes was recorded in Estonia (783), followed by Spain (305); Lithuania (178); the Netherlands (127); Finland (108); Italy (92); Ireland (42) and Cyprus (7). In terms of the number of residence permits/visa issued, in 2018, the number was the highest in the UK (1,160 entrepreneur long-term visas issued and 315 graduate entrepreneur visas); followed by France (524 ‘talent’ passports issued), Estonia (422 visas and residence permits issued for entrepreneurs or start-up employees), Spain (104) and the Netherlands (92). The remaining eight Member States issued less than 50 permits each. 8. The existence of a special visa or residence permit to facilitate the immigration of start-up founders and innovative entrepreneurs from third countries has been considered a good practice in some Member States. Although most of the schemes are in their infancy, having a specific admission channel is considered to have helped to attract international start-ups and talent. 9. Member States without a specific scheme use other channels to admit start-up founders. Member States that do not have a specific start-up scheme in place reported that they most commonly admit start-up founders from third countries through long-term visas and residence permits for self-employment and business activities; followed by employment and gainful activities; investor permits and/or for the purposes of studies and research. Due to lack of statistics, there is limited quantitative evidence on the extent to which Member States without a specific scheme are successful in attracting innovative start-ups from third countries. Some qualitative evidence suggests that some Member States, such as Germany and Sweden, attract entrepreneurial individuals via existing admission channels. 10. One of the most important ‘pull’ factors for founders/ employees is the Member State’s start-up scene and the presence of hubs and locations with well-developed ecosystems where start-ups can develop and grow. Socio-economic factors at play include cost of living, salary levels, housing and quality of life. Cultural differences, however, are reported in some Member States to act as a deterrent, for example, due to third-country nationals not being used to the business culture of the Member State. 11. Migration-specific incentives to attract start-up founders and innovative entrepreneurs include: online application systems, fast-track and shortened processing times, reduced documentary requirements, and assistance and support from relevant institutions with the immigration process. 12. Access to funding and investments (e.g. micro-loans) is available for start-ups in most Member States. Funding is available through both state and private sector actors, often provided in cooperation. 13. Common challenges in attracting start-ups and entrepreneurs experienced at macro level by Member States include global competition for talent, comparable opportunities in domestic and other markets, and lack of incubators and accelerators. Challenges at micro level include burdensome administrative procedures and lengthy application times

A typical Data Centre is comprised of multiple hardware and software components from different manufacturers, each with their own management tools, silo dashboard and limited sharing capabilities of business operations control data. This problem seems to get worse as IT-based companies are moving towards dynamic and complex virtualized and cloud environments. Moreover, when working on system´s safety, disrupting even one element of this fragile infrastructure runs the risk of affecting other systems, causing serious damage to the business. The average reported incident length is of 86 minutes, resulting in an average cost per incident of about $690,200. CorreAssess™ is an innovative game-changing Data Center Optimization Management system for business IT leaders that empowers companies with a complete visibility and control on all their IT infrastructure, through accurate detailed analytics insights delivered on a daily basis. It helps to generate valuable information for wise usage of IT infrastructure investments, resource allocation efficiency, IT alignment to defined SLAs, compliance, service availability, data recovery risks and easier cloud migration, alerting in advance before threats impact the company business. With CorreAssess™ companies will be able to reduce up to 25% the infrastructure investment costs and prevent risks of business failure by improving business continuity up to 80%. So far, €2M million have been raised and invested into the development and testing of the system to ensure its robustness and efficiency and move into the next stages of commercialisation. Within the overall project, we intend to finalise systems engineering and conduct a wide pilot trial within Europe. Current IP portfolio will be expanded to EU. The proposed work in Phase 1 of the SME instrument fits into our overall plan to reach the market by contributing the financial resources needed to plan a fast sound wider deployment of CorreAssess™ and its market uptake.

Since almost 150 years, Luxembourg depends on two kinds of migration, qualified and non-qualified, in order to deal with the workforce needs of its economy. Compared to the other EU Member States, Luxembourg is the country with the largest proportion of foreigners; however, this foreign population is mainly composed of EU citizens. Due to its size and geographic position, Luxembourg was able to have access to a very particular form of economic migration: cross-border workers. Globalisation has also played a decisive role in the development of economic migration for the Luxembourgish labour market. The financial centre was obliged to become highly specialised in order to remain competitive in regards to other financial centres and to maintain its volume of business. In order to maintain its competitive advantage, Luxembourg needs highly skilled personnel, which the country has found, up until now, within the Greater Region. This reality is even more pronounced with regards to the labour market: the number of actives (salaried and non-salaried) on 31 March 2014 shows that Luxembourgish nationals represented only 31%, EU citizens 65% and third-country nationals only 4%. Cross-border workers from Belgium, France and Germany represented 42% of the workforce and the resident migrant population (EU citizens and third-country nationals) 28%. Cross-border workers, which consist of skilled and highly skilled labour are substantially attracted for two reasons: 1) more competitive salaries on the Luxemburgish labour market ; and 2) a geographical location which allows the commuting of cross-border workers. The attitude of the successive governments was to adapt immigration to the economic needs of the country. The government policy intends to focus on attracting highly added value activities focussed on new technologies (biomedicine and information as well as communication technologies – focusing on IT security), logistics and research. However, being one of the smallest countries in the European Union, Luxembourg has limited human resources to guarantee the growth not only of the financial sector but also of the new technologies sectors. The government introduced the highly qualified worker residence permit in the bill on free movement of persons and immigration approved by law of 29 August 2008 almost a year before of the enactment of the Blue Card Directive to facilitate the entry of third-country national highly qualified workers. However, this reform was isolated and incomplete and took place without making a real evaluation of the workforce demand of the different sectors of the economy. Even though until now Luxembourg has been relying on the workforce from the Greater Region, for some socio-economic and political stakeholders, highly qualified workforces began to become scarce in the Greater region. In addition to the cross-border workers, the lifting of restrictions to access all the sectors of the labour market for citizens of the new Member States (EU-8) can be considered as a mitigating factor for the need to make an evaluation of the workforce demand, because the high salaries paid in Luxembourg became a real pull factor for the highly qualified workers. As a consequence, the political authorities did not foresee a systematic plan on how to address labour shortages in specific sectors of the economy, because there has not been a significant need for doing so.

The specific nature of Moldovan circular migration to the CIS and EU is determined by two criteria: vector (direction) of migration and nature of employment in destination countries. According to the results of public opinion poll, mainly people from the villages participate in circular migration to the CIS; heads of households, men with secondary or vocational education. For them labor migration abroad is a secondary form of employment, and it is seasonal. Circular migrants to the other countries are predominantly women, and a great share of them have higher education. There are significant differences which determine circular nature of migration, especially in the impact of push and pull factors. Labor migration to the CIS countries is determined to a greater extent by the migrants' and their households' need to survive, while migration to the EU countries is conditioned by the greater living (functioning) opportunities for migrants and their families. Visa regime, high travel expenses have a significant impact on the nature of circular migration to the EU. It explains greater length of trips. Work trip to the CIS (mainly to Russia) usually lasts around 7 months, while in the EU it's twice longer, 15 months. Quite often it stimulates non-return migration. In the conditions of modern financial and economic crisis of 2008-2010 circular migration acquired several new features. These include delayed nature of migration, greater comparable choice possibilities in terms of destination countries and countries of origin, uncertainty and mass multiple choices of its implementation.

Au cours des dernières années, la composition des flux migratoires depuis et vers le Sénégal a connu de profondes évolutions, notamment en raison de la présence croissante de migrants hautement qualifiés. La crise économique, sociale, politique, etc. et la faillite des services sociaux consécutive aux programmes d’ajustement structurel ont considérablement alimenté ce phénomène. L’émigration des Sénégalais hautement qualifiés s’explique en partie par la recherche de meilleures conditions de travail et de salaires plus élevés. Parallèlement, la profonde instabilité politique de la région a précipité l’arrivée massive au Sénégal de migrants hautement qualifiés originaires d’autres pays africains. Ainsi, au Sénégal comme dans les autres pays de départ, la migration hautement qualifiée s’est accentuée - en dépit des efforts mobilisés par les politiques - et concerne désormais tous les secteurs professionnels (santé, enseignement, etc.). In the last years, migratory flows to and from Senegal have taken on new forms . In particular, the migration of highly-skilled individuals has become significant, in the wake of profound political and economic crises and particularly following on from the collapse of the country’s social services provoked by extensive structural adjustment programs. The departure of highly-skilled Senegalese nationals is largely due to economic push and pull factors. But chronic political instability in the region has also brought into Senegal substantial numbers of highly-skilled workers from other African countries. Consequently, highly-skilled migration is on the rise in Senegal as well as in other sending countries and, despite various policy initiatives, it is to be found along the whole spectrum of professional activities (health, teaching, etc.).

Abstract In 2009, it seems clear that the period of relatively rapid and sustained increase of international migration has come to a halt or, at any rate, slowed down as a result of the financial and economic crisis that started in the summer of 2007. It can be surmised that Spain is likely to be counted among the countries in which the multiple repercussions of the crisis on immigration will be larger and deeper. One reason for it is the fact that in Spain the economic downturn results in exceptionally higher rates of unemployment. Another reason is that the contrast of the new reality generated by the crisis is bound to mark an especially stark contrast with the preceding one. This paper aims at analyzing the major implications of the present financial and economic crisis on Spanish immigration, with particular attention to the community of Moroccan background that lives and works in Spain. The consequences of the recession on migration flows, their changing volume and trends are analyzed, together with its impacts on the demand for labor, unemployment and living conditions. With the many limitations that the paucity of data impose, trends in return migration and in the volume of remittances are examined as well. Looking at the future, it is likely that a long time frame will be required in Spain until the deep effects of the crisis disappear, due to the peculiar characteristics of the Spanish labour market. In such a scenario, it is clear that the forecasts for the employment and opportunities of the immigrant population cannot avoid a certain degree of pessimism. Résumé En 2009, l’augmentation des flux migratoires a subi un fort ralentissement suite à la crise financière et économique qui a commencé au milieu de l'année 2007. On peut affirmer que l'Espagne va probablement figurer parmi les pays dans lesquels les répercussions multiples de la crise sur l'immigration seront plus grandes et plus profondes. Ceci dépend du fait qu’en Espagne le ralentissement de l'économie a provoqué des taux de chômage exceptionnellement plus hauts par rapport à d'autres pays. Une autre raison est que la nouvelle réalité produite par la crise est difficilement réversible. Cette étude propose d’analyser les implications de la crise financière et économique actuelle sur l'immigration espagnole, avec une attention particulière à la communauté marocaine qui vit et travaille en Espagne. Pour répondre à ces objectifs, sont analysés les implications de la récession sur les flux migratoires, leur ampleur et tendances, ainsi que l’impact sur la demande du travail, le chômage et les conditions de vie. Malgré les nombreuses limitations imposées par le manque de données, les tendances de la migration de retour et des transferts financiers sont également examinées. S’agissant des prévisions, il est probable que les effets de la crise ne disparaîtraient de sitôt, en raison des caractéristiques spécifiques du marché du travail espagnol. Dans un scénario pareil, il est clair que les prévisions concernant l'emploi et les opportunités de la population étrangère soient plutôt pessimistes.

The global explosion of data traffic and the migration of essential services to “the cloud” are combining to push current data-center infrastructures to their limits. This applies in particular to communication networks within and between data centers (DC), which limit scalability of computing and storage already today. Wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) transmission schemes are key to overcome these bottlenecks, increasing the throughput of inter-DC and intra-DC communication links by more than an order of magnitude. However, but there are currently no WDM systems in the market that fulfill the associated cost and performance requirements: Conventional systems based on discrete components such as SFP\ or CFP transceivers are far too bulky and too expensive, while monolithic photonic integration remains technologically challenging and constrained in performance. The fundamental question remains: How to flexibly combine photonic components of a variety of material systems to create cost- and performance-optimized solutions for data centers? The answer to this question will unlock multi-billion-Euro market opportunities connected with cloud networks. HYPHEN aims at exploring and verifying the commercial potential of a novel class of optical WDM engines that combine the benefits of a large-scale photonic integration with the design flexibility of discrete systems. The optical engines are based on hybrid multi-chip integration and exploit the technique of photonic wire bonding, which was established and elaborated in the framework of the ERC Stating Grant EnTeraPIC. HYPHEN comprises an in-depth analysis of market opportunities and competitive boundary conditions, the specification of technical product concepts that are geared towards the most important technology gap, as well as the associated IP strategy and risk analysis. The project shall result in a comprehensive business plan that allows to raise funds for the next phase of commercialization.

Das Vorhaben verfolgt eine synthetisierende Perspektive auf die saisonale bäuerliche Arbeitsmigration (otchod) und die transkontinentale Fernmigration (pereselenie). Es setzt sich für den Zeitraum von den 1830er Jahren bis 1914 erstens zum Ziel, Strukturen, Formen, Umfang und Wandel der Migration zu untersuchen. Zweitens thematisiert es die materiellen und immateriellen push- und pull-Faktoren in Ausgangs- und Zielräumen, die regions-, gruppen-, generations-, schichten- und genderspezifischen Aspekte der Migration inklusive ihrer Hürden. Ein Schwergewicht wird auf die Wechselbeziehungen zwischen den verschiedenen Migrationsformen und den Heimat- und Zielregionen gelegt. Schließlich werden Inklusionschancen und Exklusionsrisiken der Migranten in den Zielgebieten untersucht. Damit gerät die Remigration von einer Million Menschen in den Fokus. War sie ein Indiz des Scheiterns? Können Kriterien formuliert werden, die eine Remigration wahrscheinlich machte? Kehrten sie in ihre Heimat zurück? Wurden sie reintegriert?Das Projekt ist als Synthese aus Großraumstudie mit höherem Abstraktionsniveau und eher kleinräumiger Fallstudie mit sozialhistorischer Tiefenschärfe konzipiert. Raum, eine Querschnittsanalyse mittlerer Reichweite, und Akteure fungieren als Klammer. Der Fokus liegt auf den Gouvernements Jaroslavl, Kaluga und Tver des Zentralen Industriegebiets mit ihrer fast rein großrussischen Bevölkerung. Sie wiesen den prozentual höchsten Anteil an otchodniki auf, partizipierten aber unterschiedlich intensiv am pereselenie. Um Migrationsverhalten zu erklären, ist es nötig, die strukturellen Rahmenbedingungen zu analysieren: die Spezifika in den Entsendegebieten wie die sozioökonomische Lage von der Gouvernements- bis zur Dorfebene, lokale Traditionen, Netzwerke und Vorlieben, eine bestimmte Zielregion aufzusuchen, um Geld zu verdienen. Hinzu kommen familiäre Gründe wie Besitzverhältnisse, Familiengröße und individuelle wie Alter, Geschlecht, Bildung oder handwerkliche Fähigkeiten. Diese Parameter helfen zu erklären, weshalb otchodniki mit der Tradition brachen und für das pereselenie optierten, obwohl ihr Entschluss einen bis zu zweijährigen Einnahmeausfall bedeutete, den staatliche Beihilfen nicht kompensierten. Noch schwieriger als die ökonomischen waren die gesundheitlichen Risiken zu kalkulieren. Das Projekt greift daher zudem den Nexus von Migration und Gesundheit auf, dem sich die moderne Migrationsforschung seit kurzem zuwendet.Von der bisherigen Forschung hebt sich das Projekt dadurch ab, dass es den otchod nicht mit Perspektive auf die Entstehung einer Arbeiterschaft, sondern in seinen Auswirkungen auf die Akteure und ihre ländliche Heimat untersucht. Indem es die zwei Migrationsformen nicht wie bisher isoliert, sondern gerade in ihrem Wechselspiel betrachtet, verheißt es, den Wandel traditionaler Migrationsweisen erklären zu können.

Concerns that immigrants take jobs away from natives and reduce their wages are widespread and have a substantial impact on immigration policies. The financial crisis and the subsequent economic down-turn in most OECD countries have further fanned these fears. Albeit not uncontroversial, the overwhelming share of the recent empirical literature finds, however, that immigration has only moderate effects on wages and employment. More specifically, the empirical findings indicate that i. the aggregate effects of immigration on wages and unemployment are small, ii. most native workers tend to benefit from immigration in terms of higher wages and lower unemployment risks, iii. the already existing immigrant workforce suffers substantially from further immigration, iv. high skilled and older workers tend to benefit more from immigration than less skilled and younger workers. Immigration and integration policies can improve the welfare effects and mitigate adverse distributional effects by pursuing skill-selective immigration policies and policies which increases the competiveness of immigrants in the labor market: e.g. via language courses, the acknowledgement of occupational and other professional degrees.