In this webinar, Dr. Julia Reinold explores the factors that shape whether skilled migrants decide to remain in destination countries or move onwards. While policy debates across Europe and beyond increasingly focus on attracting international talent in response to labour shortages, much less attention has been paid to the conditions that encourage migrants to stay.
Drawing on several research projects using diverse methodologies and data sources - including the International Mobility Panel of Migrants in Germany (IMPa) and the Horizon Europe project Link4Skills - the seminar examines how migrants’ experiences, opportunities, and constraints influence their staying intentions and mobility trajectories.
The presentation highlights the interplay between factors that support long-term settlement, such as career opportunities and social belonging, and those that may discourage migrants from remaining, including uncertainty, administrative barriers, and limited professional prospects. Rather than approaching retention solely as a labour-market outcome, the seminar situates it within broader societal and policy contexts.
The webinar will also reflect on methodological approaches to studying retention and discuss policy implications for governments and employers seeking not only to attract, but also to retain, skilled migrants.
About the Speaker: Dr. Julia Reinold is a researcher at the Department of Migration, Integration and International Labour Market Research (INTER) at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in Nuremberg, Germany, where she works on the International Mobility Panel of Migrants in Germany (IMPa). Her research focuses on highly skilled migration, labour migration, migration drivers, and migration policy, with particular attention to retention in destination countries and onward migration, using quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods approaches. She is also a member of the Board of the IMISCOE Standing Committee on Migrant Transnationalism (MITRA).
