EU warns of worker shortage as population ages – and says migration is now a ‘necessity’

A third of all Europeans are expected to be of retirement age in 2050, according to a new demographics study which aims to prepare the EU for drastic changes to its workforce. 

Among solutions to tackle the problem of an increasingly ageing population, the European commissioner in charge of demography, Dubravka Šuica, gave high weight to migration as “a necessity” in combatting a shrinking workforce, since those looking to emigrate to the EU are of working age.

The EU’s third-ever demographics study, published on Tuesday (14 July), found that residents aged 20–40 are expected to become outnumbered by those above 65 by 2038.

While growing life expectancy is a sign of progress, it is expected to reach 90 years for women and at least 86 years for men by 2100.

This means that the EU is faced with what it calls a ‘longevity economy’, whose focus will have to shift to broadening funding and labour for care facilities, as well as adapting its retirement strategy so as to avoid the outlook facing France’s labour force – where the average worker earns less than a pensioner. 

The decreasing birth rate helps to explain this ageing trend, since the amount of births almost halved from 1961 with 6.8 million births, to 2024 at 3.55 million.

“As fertility rates decline, migration has become an important driver of population change, counterbalancing the negative effects of population ageing and labour force contraction,” the report reads – although clarifying that migrant fertility levels tend to converge with those of the host country with time.