The potential benefits for the economy of qualified workforce from third countries have determined governments to adapt their immigration strategies. Thus in 2013 Governments across high-income countries continued to optimize both their economic policies and the immigration flows.

Madeleine Sumption, who signed an article in the newsletter of 10 December 2013 of the Migration Policies Institute (MPI), considers these strategies as being more and more selective, concentrating on those immigrants who offer the highest economic return - skilled immigrants.

Canadian "Startup visa" for entrepreneur immigrants
Canada changed its selection criteria for immigrant workers, placing more emphasis on previous Canadian work experience, on firm employment offers and on the language skills of the potential immigrant. Canada has also launched a new programme for entrepreneur immigrants - the "startup visa" - meant to encourage the application of innovative ideas with funding from Canadian investors. The investor and entrepreneur type programmes have become extremely popular lately, by their potential to stimulate economic growth and to create new workplaces. Several European countries, including Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain, have followed Canada's example, introducing or revising programmes dedicated to entrepreneur immigrants.

The professional skills of migrant workers, in the core of immigration policies
Germany, meanwhile, relaxed visa rules for certain middle-skilled workers from outside the European Union, responding to industry concerns about shortages of workers with vocational skills. At the same time, several governments have introduced measures to make the most of skills in the existing immigrant population. Germany and Norway have implemented such programmes for the optimum utilisation of immigrants' professional skills and the assessment of their competencies against national standards. Canada has recently introduced the requirement to have the professional skills assessed before submitting the visa application, which enables employers to use more efficiently the human capital represented by the immigrant work force.

In the author's opinion, the recognition of qualifications obtained by immigrants abroad is another measure to stimulate the immigration of qualified work force.

In October 2013 two events occurred, aiming to enhance the immigration strategies of EU Member States: a suite of revisions of the legal framework approved by the European Parliament for recognizing qualifications and the agreement between EU and Canada for concluding a trade agreement which involves the mutual recognition of qualifications between signatory parts.

To mitigate the effects of the economic crisis, the strategies of developed country governments started to target the integration of immigrants into the human capital reserves. The economic stake of using immigrants' professional skills has increased with the development of knowledge based industries. For this reason proactive measures are expected on behalf of countries facing a labour deficit in key sectors for attracting qualified human resources among immigrants and facilitating international education programmes, particularly for immigrants from developing countries.

Source: Newsletter Migration Policy Institute 10 December 2013 http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=978