Labour market performance and migration flows - European ...

European CommissionOccasional Paper 60, Volume IFigure 5.2. Share of emigrants from AMCs by area of destination, last available yearsSource: Fargues (2005)Figure 5.2, which is reproduced from Fargues (2005), provides the break-down of migration figuresaccording to migrant destination country, showing a sharp difference between Maghreb and theMashreq countries. Both figure 5.2 and table 5.2 demonstrate that the distribution of migrantsacross areas of destination is changing. Migrants from the Maghreb move predominantly towardsEuropean OECD countries, while approximately two thirds of the migrants from the Mashreqreside in the Gulf and in other Arab countries.Cross-country differences in terms of migrant distribution are also related to the predominantpattern of migration: while migrants towards the Gulf Countries tend to move on a temporary basis,migration towards the OECD is mostly on a permanent basis (World Bank, 2008a). Table 5.3reports information on the length of individual migration episodes to selected OECD countries.Country oforiginTable 5.3. Distribution of migrants to selected OECD countries by duration of stayLessthan 1year1-3years3-5years5-10years10-20yearsMore than20 yearsNoanswerAlgeria 1.1 1.8 1.8 4.9 7.1 61.5 21.8Egypt 3.9 6.5 6.7 13.0 22.2 39.6 8.1Jordan 4.7 7.5 7.3 16.9 29.3 32.3 2.0Lebanon 2.7 4.1 3.7 14.4 33.9 37.1 4.1Morocco 3.4 7.2 5.8 11.4 19.9 39.4 12.8Palestine 4.8 7.6 5.4 15.0 25.2 37.2 4.8Syria 3.2 6.4 5.7 16.6 34.5 29.6 4.0Tunisia 1.4 2.3 1.9 5.0 12.8 53.4 23.3Note: data refer to: Australia, Canada, Italy, France, Spain, Sweden, United States.Source: Dumont (2006)These differences in geographical distribution and in the length of the individual migrationepisodes have far-reaching consequences for the labour market, as has been briefly argued inSection 1, for the characteristics of the labour markets at destination are a relevant mediating factor126