The paper analyses the evolution of EU movers and third country nationals (TCNs) in the EU, taking into account their gender, education level, and sector of employment. It proposes a simple indicator to capture the allocative efficiency of different subgroups of non-nationals in the EU and in specific Member States.

The indicator compares the relative sectoral over- and under representation of different subgroups of non-nationals with the recent changes in the labour volume in different sectors of the economy, weighted for their employment share.

The allocation is considered “efficient” if the relative over- or under representation mirrors changes in the labour demand at sectoral level. The empirical results show that the allocative efficiency decreased during the economic and financial crisis, while improving during the subsequent recovery. The same method can be applied to monitor the role of foreign labour in EU labour markets during the coronavirus pandemic crisis.

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