Decisions taken by European Union institutions will soon lead to the creation of the EU Talent Pool, a new platform designed to connect companies from member states with people from third countries willing to work in Europe. The tool is intended to help member states fill labour shortages in sectors facing workforce deficits. However, Polish Members of the European Parliament remain divided over the mechanism. Some believe it could become another migration route, while others see it as a practical response to staffing shortages.
“The Talent Pool is a voluntary mechanism. It is aimed at employers in individual member states so that, in a controlled manner and under state supervision, they can seek specialists from third countries who are necessary for their business operations. Employers will be able to turn to them when they cannot find people with the appropriate qualifications and skills on the European labour market among those already residing in the European Union or in a given member state,” Krzysztof Hetman, Member of the European Parliament from the Polish People’s Party, told Newseria.
First, in March, Members of the European Parliament voted in favour of establishing the EU Talent Pool, and on 30 March this year the Council of the European Union approved the regulation creating the mechanism. The use of the new digital tool will be voluntary and free of charge for both jobseekers and employers. The European Commission will be responsible for building the platform, which is expected to become operational by 2027 at the latest.
“The EU Talent Pool is generating strong emotions. Its name sounds appealing and attractive, but this idea has also raised concerns that it could create yet another migration route. This time, it would be legal migration. We have already heard, for example in the transport sector, about Commission ideas to bring in drivers from Bangladesh or Pakistan because of shortages in the European Union,” says Jadwiga Wiśniewska, Member of the European Parliament from Law and Justice. “I would point out that the level of education and training in particular professions in third countries differs from that in the European Union. Secondly, we must remember that standards for obtaining qualifications are completely different. We must also watch very carefully whether, as critics of this programme claim, it could in practice become a route for legal migration into the European Union.”
According to the International Road Transport Union (IRU), the European Union is short of around 500,000 professional drivers, and the gap is expected to widen in the coming years. The reasons include an ageing workforce and a limited inflow of new drivers. This is why the IRU welcomed the EU’s new initiative. Drivers are among dozens of shortage occupations across the Union listed in the annex to the regulation establishing the EU Talent Pool. The list also includes, among others, civil engineers, mechanics, electricians, bricklayers, programmers, doctors, nurses and medical support staff, as well as cooks and waiters.
“The needs of European companies vary widely: from highly qualified specialists in fields such as quantum physics to drivers with specific skills, who are in very short supply on the market today,” the PSL MEP explains.
“There is a shortage of workers on the European labour market, but there are already temporary work arrangements, and employers use these solutions to bring in workers from outside the European Union for a specific period to carry out particular tasks. This works well when it is done in compliance with the law, transparently and clearly. We are not closing ourselves off to that. What we are pointing out, however, is that large-scale use of programmes such as the Talent Pool may result in the creation of a legal migration route to the European Union. The Union is open, but we want to be fully aware of who is entering, under what rules, and whether that person will in fact be focused on the work they applied to perform,” Jadwiga Wiśniewska stresses.
As the European Parliament points out, member states will have to ensure that all interested employers and other entities, such as temporary work agencies or intermediaries, are legally registered in the relevant EU country and comply with the relevant EU and national rules on fair recruitment, adequate working conditions, non-discrimination, protection against adverse treatment and human trafficking.
People from outside the EU who receive an offer through the EU Talent Pool will still have to go through national immigration procedures in order to obtain residence documents and work permits in the relevant member state. Participating countries will, however, be able to speed up the process.
“This mechanism will not increase migration pressure for very simple reasons. First, it is voluntary. Second, it concerns specialists. Third, it is under state control. Fourth, employers themselves will be the ones submitting requests and offers for a specific professional group from which these specialists are to come,” Krzysztof Hetman argues.
Eurostat data show that in the fourth quarter of 2025, 2% of jobs across the European Union remained vacant. In the euro area, the figure stood at 2.2%. The highest job vacancy rates were recorded in the Netherlands at 3.9% and Belgium at 3.5%. Poland ranked near the bottom of the list with a vacancy rate of 0.7%. Only Romania had fewer unfilled jobs, at 0.6%.
Eurostat also reports that in January 2026 the unemployment rate in the European Union stood at 5.8%. Compared with January 2025, it had fallen by 0.2 percentage points, equal to 274,000 fewer unemployed people. The highest unemployment rates were recorded in Finland at 10.2% and Spain at 9.8%, while the lowest were in Poland and Bulgaria, both at 3.1%.
“There are more than 12 million unemployed people in the European Union. We should prepare programmes to activate them, because they are a major burden on the budgets of all member states, and they already have education, talents and are residents of the Union. Therefore, we should first make use of the human resources we already have, rather than bringing in more people who will then need to be provided with all the obligations resulting from social and healthcare systems,” Jadwiga Wiśniewska argues. “Member states point out that the cost of maintaining migrants is very high. Health, education and social systems are becoming less efficient because supporting migrants places a huge burden on national budgets. With such a large number of unemployed people in the European Union, attractive programmes encouraging them to take up employment would certainly produce better results.”
According to the European Commission, by the end of 2024, 21% of all residence permits issued in the EU, or 5.64 million, were related to employment. The most common reason remained family-related grounds, accounting for 33%, or 8.65 million permits. In April 2025, 12.5 million third-country nationals were employed in the EU labour market out of 198.5 million people aged 20 to 64 in work. That represented 6% of total employment.
“The United States built its strength on foreigners and made use of their potential, as can be seen in Silicon Valley. It was a place where global talent, including people from Europe and Asia, had a chance to develop and pursue their projects. They contributed their knowledge and experience to what was being built in Silicon Valley and in many other places across the United States. Today we see extraordinary projects, especially in digital technologies, that originated there,” Krzysztof Hetman notes.
According to the Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies report Silicon Valley Indicators 2026, technology sector workers in Silicon Valley come from all over the world. The largest shares are from India at 26%, China at 17%, and other parts of Asia at 9%. Specialists from Europe accounted for 6%, while only 30% of employees were Americans.
“Given the quality of life in Europe, the prospects it offers, and the opportunity to benefit from the knowledge, know-how and experience of people who want to grow through projects important for the European Union, I hope they will choose Europe as their destination,” the PSL MEP says.
