A recent CReAM report finds that employment rates among immigrants in the EU have improved across all origin groups since 2017, reaching their highest levels in 2025. While EU-born migrants match or even exceed native employment rates in many Member States, non-EU-born migrants — despite recording the largest increase of 6.6 percentage points, from 59.4% to 66.0% — continue to lag behind both natives (71.6%) and EU-born migrants (74.8%). In particular, highly educated non-EU-born migrants are less likely to be employed than native-born people with the same level of education, and Germany is among the countries with particularly large employment-rate gaps for this group. The report points to several possible explanations, including the inadequate recognition and transferability of foreign qualifications, occupational mismatch and overqualification. These are precisely the issues the BQ-Portal addresses — and in particular when it comes to the recognition of internationally acquired vocational qualifications. As a central information portal on foreign vocational qualifications and education systems from around the world, it helps recognition authorities, companies, advisory services and applicants to better understand, assess and classify international qualifications, contributing to faster and more transparent recognition procedures and, ultimately, to the successful integration of skilled workers into the German labour market.
CReAM Report: Recognition of Foreign Qualifications Key to Closing Employment Gaps in the EU
A new CReAM report tracks employment trends among immigrants across the EU — and finds that the recognition of foreign qualifications remains a key obstacle for highly educated non-EU-born migrants.