Educated for migration? Blind spots around labor market conditions,competence building,and international mobility

Abstract

Young European graduates are crossing borders to work abroad more often than in the past. This trend is particularly evident in Southern Europe, where recent economic downturn has significantly diminished professional opportunities and career prospects. This study will investigate Spain, a country where unemployment has increased dramatically since 2008, as a case study to examine recent graduate’s experiences to develop a professional career in Germany. In particular, this study will draw upon various sources: official statistics; review literature; and education and training policies throughout the European Union. The investigation features an interview with Spanish graduates working in Germany to offer insight into the experiences of perhaps the best-prepared generation of the Spanish workforce. Our results indicate that young Spaniards, leaving the country to work out of necessity rather than choice, learn through the benefits and challenges of a career abroad. We finish our article by discussing the notions of education, competencies and adaptation, and how citizen and professional identities are redefined after the experience of working abroad.

Introduction

The disposition to leave one’s home country in order to further improve one’s educational or professional prospects, or what this study shall refer to as “mobility,” has historically been considered a valuable component of a university education. More recently in Europe, mobility has gained increasing relevance through different mobility exchange programs such as Erasmus and the previous Leonardo, allowing students to study abroad at other institutions of higher education throughout Europe. These programs intend to form well-rounded European citizens through a comprehensive education, language and cultural exchange abroad.

Particularly in the case of Southern Europe, economic crisis has had an important impact on graduate professional development and career prospects, further serving as an impetus for mobility (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2013; Papademetriou, 2015): young European (Spanish) graduates are increasingly crossing borders in order to search for work.

Mobility and migration are concepts that have historically different origins. We consider “international migration (…) as long-term relocation across an international border—is just one among several possible transformations in people’s lives (along with long-distance commuting or internal migration for instance)” (Lafleur and Stanek, 2017: 4). Mobility, on its side, has developed in a context of more progress in communication, transportation, and technologies in the last century. From this perspective, mobility and internal migration in the European Union (EU) have evolved in different ways. The “European laboratory” of increased mobility has been particularly successful in a context of economic growth. Nevertheless, the current European contexts for mobility and migration have changed due to the economic crisis, with peaks of unemployment especially in the South of Europe (Roos and Zaun, 2016). Thus, it is important to emphasize that economic recession has rather diversified migration flows both within and outside the EU. The former migration flows may highlight the contradictions that emerge as the results of transnationalism and Europeanization, or in other words, to what extent young graduates are seen and see themselves as foreigners in Europe.

In this article, we examine the case of Spain, where unemployment has reached dramatic levels in recent years,18.63% in general and 42.92% youth unemployment (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, 2017). In light of the recent economic downturn, new Spanish graduates are increasingly searching for professional jobs and careers in other European countries, forcing them to become mobile and “new migrants,” whether they have been adequately prepared, educated, and trained for a career abroad, or not. In fact, due to the financial crisis, the migration balance in Spain has reversed since 2012.

In this regard, our article is based upon empirical evidence of intra-European migration provided by research literature, as well as on our own research using a series of interview excerpts from a sample of Spanish graduates working in Berlin. These interviews offer insight into the experiences of members of the most well-equipped workforce Spain has ever seen. Our research investigates not only to what extent recent graduates feel integrated into their working environment and life in a new country, but also tend to reveal how their competences have evolved as a result of moving abroad. In addition, the study shows positive and negative aspects of working in Europe for a young generation, and the concern for differential treatment between Spanish migrants and natives of the country they chose to work in.

The recent college graduates in Spain are arguably the best-prepared generation of the work force the country has ever seen, coming well educated with bachelor and master degrees, trained in foreign languages, and equipped with a global perspective. However, these graduates feel pressured to leave their country in search of jobs abroad, while studies show that many would have preferred to remain in Spain (Bygnes and Bivand, 2016). The experience working abroad has failed to live up to graduates’ expectations. Many graduates experience difficulties having their qualifications and readiness to work recognized by employers, slowing down the pace at which they adapt to a new society. As a result, Spanish graduates experience disadvantage when compared to those with whom they must compete with for jobs.

The interviews carried out among Spanish graduates has revealed that despite being part of the European-wide mobility project, the Erasmus exchange experience is quite different from the migrant worker one. Have these graduate students been appropriately prepared for migration in higher education institutions? Does Europe remain a respected model of international citizenship, or when it comes to work relations and integration, are these young people still treated as foreign workers? Should they be referred to as European workers, or do they better respond to the idea of Gastarbeiter – German for “immigrant worker?”

Nowadays, mobility and migration throughout Europe are increasingly frequent and significant, and in spite of some skepticism, it is believed that they will play an even more important role in the future. Germany, together with France, has been instrumental in the formation of a unified Europe, and particularly in the case of Germany, economic development has attracted many young Spaniards. This reveals that the impact of the European financial crisis has pushed Central Europe and Southern Europe in opposite directions, as the economies in Spain, Greece, Portugal, and Italy have suffered. Therefore, the new Southern European emigrants have been motivated by expectations for better career prospects and quality of life at destination.

In this article we will try to reflect on the following questions: Are young graduates properly educated to thrive or just to survive while abroad? Even if they are ready to start such an experience, what challenges are they dealing with? How do they assess their experience of mobility schemes promoted by the EU which they have enjoyed during their university years? These are some of the questions underlying our research agenda and which we attempt to address here.

Policy context: Mobility of graduates fostered by European policies

In this section we will draw upon recent data on European mobility of workers and on the role of mobility in higher education in the EU attempt to develop a European citizenship through programs such as Erasmus, which is currently celebrating 30 years of existence.

European Union legislation provides a framework regarding the conditions of entry and length of stay for migrants, along with a set of common rights. If we consider immigration inside the EU-28 (Eurostat, 2015), data indicate that there were 33.5 million people born outside of the EU-28 living in an EU Member State on 1 January 2014, while there were 17.9 million persons in the EU-28 who had been born in a different EU Member State from the one where they currently resided.

In absolute terms, the largest numbers of non-nationals living in the EU Member States on 1 January 2014 were found in Germany (7.0 million persons), the United Kingdom (5.0 million), Italy (4.9 million), Spain (4.7 million), and France (4.2 million). Non-nationals in these five Member States collectively represented 76% of the total number of non-nationals living in all of the EU Member States, while the same five Member States had a 63% share of the EU’s population.

In particular, Germany reported the largest number of immigrants (692.7 thousand) in 2013, followed by the United Kingdom (526.0 thousand), France (332.6 thousand), Italy (307.5 thousand), and Spain (280.8 thousand). If we turn to emigration instead of immigration, Spain reported the highest number of emigrants in 2013 (532.3 thousand), followed by the United Kingdom (316.9 thousand), France (300.8 thousand), Poland (276.4 thousand), and Germany (259.3 thousand). A total of 16 of the EU Member States reported more immigration than emigration in 2013, but in Bulgaria, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and the three Baltic Member States, emigrants outnumbered immigrants. Spain is remarkably the only country that appears in both lists, where emigration has outnumbered immigration since 2012 due mainly to the impact of the financial crisis and the lack of prospect that young Spanish graduates faced if remaining in the country.

According to the Europe 2020 Strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth, the EU seeks to reach the 40% mark for residents aged 30–34 in the EU with a higher education qualification by 2020. The EU-28 had just over 20 million tertiary education students in 2012; five EU Member States—namely Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Poland and Spain—reported 2.0 million tertiary education students or more in 2012. Spain already has large numbers for enrollment in higher education, while its main weakness still lies in the lack of sufficient job opportunities post-graduation.

As the Eurostat report (2015) indicates, the likelihood of participation in education and training was related to the level of educational achievement: persons with a tertiary level education reported the highest participation rates (61.3% for the EU-27 in 2011), while those having completed at most lower secondary education, were the least likely to have participated (21.8%). Related to these data, the three most commonly cited obstacles for participating in education and training among those who wanted to participate but did not do so were, according to the 2011 Adult Education Survey: no need of training for work (50.0% in the EU-27); lack of time due to family responsibilities (20.9%); and conflict with work schedules (18.0%).

It also stands to mention that in many countries, students and graduates still face obstacles in having their studies abroad recognized for work or further study. Additionally, graduates also sometimes discover that they do not have the skills and competencies they need for their future careers. At times, even if the graduate does have the necessary skills for a job, their qualifications are not indicated or acknowledged by their degree in either their own countries or abroad.

As part of a global trend, national education systems (higher education included) are under different constraints due to external evaluations and comparisons. On one hand, many education systems are becoming increasingly international with government involvement, while simultaneously suffering from the pressure to be marketized and/or privatized, although many are still considered a public service. Furthermore, the literature points to significant changes in the institutions and the mechanisms of regulation of the labor markets acting as an interface between education and employment (Planas and Sala, 2001). Recently, many institutions have emerged with the mission of building rules of coordination in educational systems, holding certain people accountable for different aspects of the system. These mechanisms are institutionalized and also acquire an international dimension progressively, since they shift their focus from education qualifications and degrees to the recognition of competencies in order to be compatible with systems of qualifications in different countries. This is the case with the efforts to create the European Higher Education Space, the Bologna Process, the European Credit Transfer System and the corresponding national qualifications frameworks (Young and Gordon, 2007).

Thus, the European Qualification Framework for lifelong learning has been established to create a common European reference system that will link different countries’ national qualifications systems and frameworks together. In practice, it will function as a translation device making qualifications more readily transferrable. This will help learners and workers wishing to move between countries or change jobs or move between educational institutions at home and abroad.

Research context: The role of competence building upon mobility and labor market

The theoretical framework for our analysis is presented, taking into account academic literature as well as empirical research on mobility in higher education in Europe. We have used this framework for our own empirical research, for the interviews we have conducted, and for the analysis of the responses they have elicited.

According to the European Commission (2010), key competencies for lifelong learning consist of a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes that are appropriate and necessary in the context of personal fulfilment and development, social inclusion, active citizenship, and employment. Based on the European policy framework, three of the eight key competences of the European Commission shown in its report (2012), prove relevant for the present research: communication in foreign languages; social and civic competence; and a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship. These competencies are expected to also be fundamental for adaptation to other cultures. Further studies on the opportunities in the European labor markets for young adults stress the need to develop entrepreneurial abilities and labor competencies (Safta, 2015; Serrano et al., 2011). Therefore, the relationships between competence building achievement, labor market integration, and economic independence for young adults, over future years will be discussed in this section.

Labor market segmentation and a shortage of training contribute to extremely high rates of youth unemployment. The EU is concerned about the detachment of the young generation (Chisholm et al., 2011).

Youth transitions to economic independence and adulthood are becoming increasingly more difficult and prolonged. Moreover, there is empirical research (Chung et al., 2012; O’Reilly et al., 2015) disagreeing with the notion that the distinguishing characteristics of current youth labor markets reflect basic changes in employment. There is high demand for labor flexibility, changing skill prerequisites, new patterns of migration among the young people of Europe, and increased policy intervention and funding by the EU.

According to De Oude (2014), the EU focuses on research related to “the European identity,” creating cultural awareness and encouraging future movement of young people and their competencies, while companies seem to recognize the progress of general competencies of workers with experience in international mobility. However, that study indicates that just 11.8% of interviewed businesses would choose workers with international experiences. Companies have emphasized the importance of general competencies over international competencies and experiences when they interviewed candidates in their recruitment selection process.

Musselin’s (2004) research indicates that universities in Europe have had an extended career in academic mobility since the Middle Ages. This study provides evidence that European policies were intensely focused on student’s promotion, academic mobility, and the preparation of research networks and plans around the EU. Nevertheless, academic labor markets in the EU remain basically national and have lots of problems that obstruct the progress of European careers and the internationalization of academic recruitments.

For this reason, higher education is essential for young adults in a stage of extended transition between school and work, with many people abandoning their studies or young people overqualified. This also involves labor market policies focused on job creation, incentives for workers, development of career guidance, and assistance into self-employment or entrepreneurship (Furlong and McNeish, 2001; Lenzi et al., 2004).

Relating to mobility competence building, education and culture, the Research-based Analysis and Monitoring of Youth in Action project (Fennes et al., 2013) argues that project-based learning has an important effect on learning development and, as a result, on entrepreneurship initiatives, with minor enhancement in interpersonal and social skills, as well as the capability to talk in another language. Furthermore, team-work is considered the most useful competence, followed by intercultural competences, and the ability to provide solutions taking diverse viewpoints into account.

In a globalized society, intercultural communication and intercultural competence are becoming increasingly significant and higher education should be aware of this, as the NVAO (Nederlands-Vlaamse Accreditatie Organisatie—the Accreditation Organization of the Netherlands and Flanders) points out (Catteeuw, 2012). Moreover, and related to the former idea, new developments of identity relate to cultural belonging but also to the possibility (or the difficulty) of citizenship, participation, and democracy that emerges from these processes, together with new forms of consumption, work, and relations (Berry and Sabatier, 2009).

Therefore, mobility processes depend in part on individuals’ competencies, regardless of the importance of the destination country and the motives for the move. In addition, individuals’ achievement of personal and intercultural development competencies for acculturation and adaptation is crucial to mobility.

Spanish labor market: Recent features and trends resulting in youth migration

A description of the development of the Spanish labor market is presented, in order to understand what are the main reasons behind the large trek that has taken place in the past five years and which has no precedent in our history, not if we consider the high educational level of the population leaving the country.

The Spanish labor market was already problematic before the Great Recession (Estrada, 2015): since 1980, unemployment in Spain averaged 16%, and never went below 7%, as opposed to the lower figures in neighboring European countries (Spain 16,4%, Portugal 7,8%, France 9,2%, Italy 10,8%). Temporary work was also a prominent problem, with the proportion of temporary contracts being much higher than in other countries; additionally, 30% of these jobs were occupied by overqualified workers. As Coscubiela and Rojo (2012) indicate, reforms in the labor market since the approval of the Statute of Workers in the early 1980s have weakened the position of workers in their bargaining with employers. In order to give a synthetic overview, and following the Fundación Novia Salcedo (2013), we point to the following features and trends of the Spanish labor market and its impact upon youth employment and unemployment.

Employment destruction

By 2014, Spain had more than 6 million unemployed workers (out of a population of 45 million inhabitants) and more than half of which were considered long term unemployed. In the year 2007, there were 1.8 million unemployed of which less than one-third were long term unemployed (532,033) (De la Rica, 2015). Malo and Cueto (2014) have clearly shown that the entry into the labor market has been exceedingly difficult since 2008, with an extraordinary impact on young people, immigrants, and untrained workers.

High youth unemployment rate

The youth unemployment in Spain has been proportionally much higher than the overall unemployment rate since the early 1980s. “It reached its lowest level in 2007 at 13.1% (16–29 years old) and has since risen to 55.1% by the end of 2014” (Gobierno de España, 2013: 38). The impact of the recent crisis upon youth unemployment is even more complicated, as Spain has suffered three significant crises in the past 40 years (Serrano, 2015) with similar trends in the early 1980s and early-mid 1990s, with peaks in 1985, 1994, and 2013.

Oversized (undesired) temporary work and high polarization of youth employment

In Spain, up to 82% of young people may be forced to take on undesired temporary jobs, regardless of the state of the economy. Furthermore, a quarter of these contracts last less than three months, and more than half of the young people who work have part-time contracts with no access to full-time positions (Gobierno de España, 2013).

Higher vulnerability of youth during the crisis

The duality in the labor market (García-Serrano, 2015) is affecting young people below 30, people older than 45, and women, while middle-age workers have managed to keep the few remaining jobs (De la Rica, 2015). Young people find it very difficult to find what they want in terms of housing and employment (Moreno, 2013).

Mismatch between qualifications and job position

The quantity of positions requiring little-to-no qualifications has played a major role during the period of economic growth between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s. This caused many young people to leave the education system before finishing their degree (Homs, 2008). Malo (2015) and Serrano (2015), among others, clearly show that education plays a role in preventing unemployment, although just having a degree may not ensure appropriate employment given their level of qualification. This situation is likely to continue according to the Cedefop (2015) skill forecast report, even if Spain has the best qualified generation ever and the competencies they have are better than those of their parents (Serrano, 2015).

Youth migration

One of the factors contributing to migration is the lack of proper institutional structure in the labor market, in addition to the fact that those who have succeeded in the educational system and are young show more readiness to improve their chances through further education (Malo, 2015), and to move out in searching for opportunities that may recognize their qualification. According to Navarrete (2014: 84), “three out of every five Spanish migrants since 2009 are between 15 and 29; a rate that would increase if we take into account those between 30 and 34, the age group where migration is the highest.”

The precariousness of many jobs and the increase in unemployment has left many people without alternatives (McGuinness, 2006). This is indeed the case of young Spanish graduates searching for jobs in other countries. For all of them, migration is no longer an option, but the only way to develop a professional career.

Spanish graduates working in Germany

We present our empirical research in this section, which we have structured in two different subsections: first, we will explain our research strategy, the method, tools, informants, and sample upon which we have reached our results. The presentation and analysis of the results will be the second subsection, where we provide interpretations arranged around four cornerstones that are strongly rooted in our analytical framework.

Research procedure

We have conducted a qualitative research based on in-depth interviews (Rubin and Rubin, 1995). In particular, we chose semi-structured in-depth interviews in order to deeply understand the perspectives of young Spanish emigrants regarding the economic crisis, work, competences, and their adaptation to countries in Europe. According to Hesse-Biber and Leavy (2006) in-depth interviews are useful for hearing the perspectives of members of underrepresented groups, as is our attempt with Spanish emigrants that are underrepresented as a group of professionals in Germany compared to other migrant groups.

We recruited participants under the following selection criteria: (a) Spanish and at least 18 years old; (b) had moved to Germany to work; and (c) had arrived in the last 5 years, since the beginning of the economic crisis. The data come from semi-structured interviews with six Spaniards living in Berlin, four women and two men, aged 23 to 38. All participants had a college education and one of them was halfway through her undergraduate degree. All of the participants completed face-to-face interviews.

We contacted participants through the Facebook group “Spanish in Berlin” and we briefly introduced posts with the purpose of this study using the snowball sampling. Our interviewees expressed their interest in the study.

The interviews averaged 40 minutes. All interviews were recorded, and our main focus was to understand their migration project, motives for migration, preparation, competencies, and how they perceived their life in relation to their new status as immigrants. Examples of questions that participants were asked included: when and what made them move to Germany, as well as a collection of relevant questions regarding their personal background. We also questioned them to capture specific immigration experiences associated with work, such as the benefits of their experience moving to Germany, challenges they experienced while adapting to life in a new country, and expectations and level of satisfaction with their choices and current situation. The evaluation interview method was based on content analysis.

In particular we used an inductive approach (Bryman and Burgess, 1994). This approach is a systematic procedure for analyzing qualitative data where the analysis is guided by specific objectives. The inductive approach allows us to research findings that emerge from the frequent, dominant or significant themes inherent in raw data, without the restraints imposed by structured methodologies. Key themes are often obscured, reframed or left invisible because of the preconceptions in the data collection and data analysis procedures imposed by deductive data analysis.

Data content analysis followed a rigorous and systematic reading and coding of the transcripts that allowed major themes to emerge. Segments of interview text were coded enabling an analysis of interview segments on a particular theme, the documentation of relationships between themes, and the identification of themes important to participants. These themes are presented in the next section, and their relationship with our main objectives.

Emerging research results

Our interviewees shared a variety of immigration experiences related to competencies and adaptation while explaining their reasons for leaving Spain. All of them faced a few common problems, such as communication, culture shock, and cultural differences. In spite of the challenges of adapting to life in a new country, they believe that their immigration experiences have had a positive impact on their competencies and, what is more relevant in educational terms, upon their personal development. However, they state that they did not receive any specific training or participate in any program offering support or advice from any organization to prepare for migration, neither their home nor universities. After analyzing and interpreting their personal experiences and statements, we have identified the following major themes related to the factors that are important to promote their own adaptation and satisfaction in the new culture and society, as well as the relevance of competences in the migration process.

Preparation before mobility

How well individuals prepare for their migration experience is one of the most salient themes that emerged from our interviews. Participants mentioned the importance of general knowledge regarding the language, the job market in the different Länder in Germany, the unemployment rate, and the cost of living in different cities. In addition, they recommend that immigrants read work regulations before arrival, to find out about specific ways of searching for jobs, like curriculum and recommendation letters. Participants considered the former aspects relevant because they state they suffer less stress and help adapt better upon arrival.

I knew I wanted to improve my German, and the best way to do it was by living in Germany. Before coming to Germany, I searched for a language academy, stay included, and I lived there for 6 months. I did not want to just arrive and look for something (Verónica, female, 38).

Immigrant employment expectations depend partly on the preexisting levels of education and technical skills, as well as their ability to communicate as needed in the language of the host-country.

Language barrier

All participants shared difficulties in terms of language barriers associated with acculturative stress in various social contexts. Even in a cosmopolitan and multicultural city such as Berlin, the German language is an essential factor when searching for a job. Most participants indicated the relevance of being competent in German, at least B1 level at a minimum. There is a false belief that knowing English and a little bit of German is enough to find a well-paying job for young graduates. However, reality is not that simple, as participants indicated:

Competency in the language of the country you wish to move to is very important for success. Prepare yourself beforehand, study the German language and try to obtain a certificate to demonstrate your language level. It is best to take courses before arriving in Germany (María, female, 26).

According to Kanas and van Tubergen (2009) certain skills valued in the labor market are country-specific, such as knowledge about the official language, business practices, and norms and institutions of the host country, while other types of skills (e.g., ability, talent, and technical skills) are general and similarly valued across different contexts and cultures. Among the country-specific skills, language skills directly affect economic performance by helping immigrants find jobs that match their pre-existing skills and allowing them to communicate effectively in the workplace (Chiswick and Miller, 2003).

Social networks and relationships

Social networks have emerged as an important factor in our research. They have proved to be an important element in all phases of the mobility process: from before one’s arrival to the country, during their stay, and even after they have returned home (some of them had previous working mobility experiences).

The access to social networks such as Facebook has become a way of gaining information about the destination prior to starting the migration process. Participants established contact through Facebook with other Spaniards who already lived in Germany and exchanged relevant information. Therefore, migrant use of social networks facilitates the initial phase of the migration process by providing information about the new culture and any necessary assistance in areas such as housing and employment search. According to Collyer (2005: 42), sustained growth in migration flows is strongly rooted in migrant networks as “sets of interpersonal ties that connect migrants, former migrant and non-migrants in origin and destination areas through ties of kinship, friendship and shared community origin.” As Adrián stated:

I did not know anyone before coming to Berlin, so I posted a message through Facebook saying that I planned to move. By the time I arrived, I already had several messages from friends of friends who knew of other Spaniards living in the city. I contacted them, and in one day, I had a room to live in for a month, a barbecue to go to meet other Spaniards, and even the chance of a job (Adrián, male, 28).

However, the fact that participants knew other people in the city does not automatically imply that they were in contact with these people for the full duration of their time abroad. In fact, the degree of interaction with these contacts prior to and during the migration was quite variable. Contact levels vary greatly during the first period of the migration process, especially when the individual travels alone and does not have any contacts in the destination city.

Competencies

In regards to competencies, most of the participants were well-established in the new city, and appreciated the strengths and talents they had gained from living at least two or more years in a different culture. Participants indicated several critical factors that contributed to personal growth during the acculturation process; in particular, a sense of perseverance associated with adaptation difficulties, as well the ability to adapt themselves to different social and working roles in the new society. Because of these challenges, participants developed a sense of perseverance and engaged in a process of self-exploration. Participants learned to become more resilient in the face of adversity and to develop more independence, self-knowledge, and to solve their own problems by themselves, competencies that are highly valued in the workplace. Another important skill relates to flexibility and the ability to quickly adapt to different environments. Participants stated that these competencies were extremely helpful in their adaptation process, and enabled them to live and work within the new culture. In addition, participants stated the need to be open-minded and to accept the rules that are part of the German context of work and its related bureaucracies.

Every day is different in this city, and for that reason you need to adapt quickly. It is very important to be flexible and open-minded if you want to survive and enjoy your daily life abroad, in spite of the difficulties. Every small step can be very rewarding, as long as you perceive the glass as half-full instead of as half-empty. No one is going to solve your personal problems. I know that is also the case in Spain, but the difference here is that you are alone. Even if you have friends, you are still alone in your daily life. So, it is important to remain perseverant in your objectives and to learn from your experiences, because each time, you gain more than you lose (Lola, female, 27).

Mobility experiences are related to the acquisition of competencies such as initiative and independence. It has been shown that experiences abroad improve linguistic competence, flexibility, open-mindedness, and cultural empathy. All of these competencies lead to a greater willingness to engage in mobility, and an improved sense of personal and professional success for the future.

These findings open the door to an in-depth exploration of the role of competencies related to working abroad. In particular, participants show a tendency between one’s attitude towards moving to another country and the competencies they gained from the experience.

In addition, answers related to adaptation and integration were focused on relatedness and identity with culture. All respondents mentioned that they did not feel part of the German culture. They did not participate in activities with Germans, they felt more supported by other Spanish migrants, and they perceive Spain as their “real home but a place with no opportunities for them and with fewer options for better life conditions.”

In summary, results from previous studies and the present one support the idea that internal EU-migrants are mainly highly educated, and do not follow previous family migrant networks in their choice of destination country:

…. my friends who studied the same thing as me (architecture) began to lose their jobs, they told me: “do not go back, you will not find job.” Then I did not plan to return, I thought that it had cost me to make a place here, all the sacrifice of the beginning I went throw it cost me a lot of effort. When I saw, although my partner had work there (in Spain) but he did not know how much longer he will keep it, I thought it was time for him to take the step and come to Germany (Tania, female, 30).

According to a recent study in Southern Europe (Bartolini et al., 2017: 672), “the decision to move to a specific country is the result of a combination of factors. Mainly, reasons to move are related to employment conditions and prospects that they face, as well as the political culture of their country of origin that they strongly criticise (clientelism, corruption, nepotism, rigid social hierarchies and gerontocracy).”

Thus, other reasons are also important for these Southern-specific migrants, such as the desire to improve one’s career perspective, to increase employability, and satisfaction from occupation.

In general, the “exploratory results” reveal that Spanish participants lack adequate preparation for the experience of working abroad within Europe, as well as the questionable extent to which mobility in the European labor market is actually feasible in practice. The results gleaned from studying the adaptation processes of young Spaniards (who by-and-large displayed a much larger effort than their German colleagues) lead us to reconsider our previous assumptions on the effectiveness of European labor mobility in all of its facets: its scope; the different means by which it is regulated; the debate on the need for a structured labor map for the “new European labor migrants;” and its socioeconomic impacts.

European mobility of migrant workforce? The constrained role of education

We finish our contribution not with closed conclusions, but rather with a set of reflections around the limited role of the mobility experienced while in higher education when the role changes from that of a student to that of a worker. We draw back on our initial considerations around mobility and migration, and we do so through the examples provided by our research with young Spanish graduates in Berlin.

Our research comprises both a psychological and educational approach, using a qualitative method to examine the nature of the migration phenomenon of Spanish graduates while taking actual work policies into account. Although these policies are of significance, the importance of the process by which young Spaniards acquire learning competencies for labor mobility and their personal adjustment in the host country should not be overlooked. Results provide insight into the personal lives of university graduates who are facing difficulties related mainly to language and cultural adaptation, while at the same time struggling to cope with other varied and unexpected demands of life in another country. In short, participants do not necessarily have all the competencies necessary for the challenges of living and working abroad. This is not to mention the additional competencies required for securing employment.

The experience to work and live abroad provides a background where personal and professional competences are further developed and acquired due to the need to integrate into the host culture. For our interviewees, mobility within the EU has become the only option to thrive in the professional world and to enter the labor market in spite of the economic crisis and its prolonged effects. Mobility is not just an opportunity for Spaniards, it is often the only opportunity.

As Kogan (2016: 356) indicates in a recent study among immigrants on integration policy measures (labor market training and counseling) and the situation of the labor market, results show “that policy intentions are not automatically translated into successfully implemented policies.” In particular, data indicate that immigrant integration programs do not guarantee a more favorable labor market integration of immigrants. In fact, “a successful integration policy is an effective one; that is, a policy that—despite a possibly negative selection of integration programs’ participants—helps participants to acquire productive skills and host country-specific competencies, provides them with useful information for navigating the labor market, and endows them with signals that are adequately perceived by employers” (Kogan, 2016: 19).

Internal European mobility as fostered by policies is both appealing as an idea and as an ideal to strive for a better future. However, when it comes to the individual experience of people who have already graduated and for whom labor mobility is not desired but rather forced, as is the case of our research, the assessment is rather different. While trends on a local level point to a strong German economy and to a slow Spanish recovery in terms of economic performance, labor market reforms in both countries seem to share certain patterns (albeit on a different scale), such as the increase of mini-jobs. Our interviewees have experienced mobility trying to overcome the high unemployment rate in Spain. However, in this process of overcoming mobility, we also see traces of empowerment through collective support underlying social networking. In many cases, this comes from migrants connecting with their Spanish colleagues, rather than forming new German contacts. Nevertheless, this collective reaction lies behind a human capital approach, where graduates consider themselves well formed, in individual terms, as they are much better prepared academically than their grandparents who might have perhaps moved to Germany in the 1960s as Gastarbeiter. Under this approach, they come to find that the European Higher Education Area does not correspond to a European work space, where there can be many more inequalities than while studying at university.

The process of mobility and intersections with the new sociocultural environment as a result of transnational movements affect labor migrants’ identity and connectedness with space, family, friendship networks, and communities as well as cultural and academic practices (Tran and Gomes, 2017). Mobility and migration therefore represent as both challenges and potential for self-fulfillment and connectedness with the world around them.

Spanish graduates in Berlin tend to see themselves as “integrating in Germany, not as Europeans living in a different country.” They do not perceive having moved to another country as related to an expansion of an international sphere. They certainly do not consider their experience as “inner mobility,” as the Spanish Ministry of Labor audaciously declared when the so-called “brain-drain” began in 2013. Their lives, as well as those of their relatives, are being affected, forcing them to find different ways for further personal and professional development. In this sense, migration can be grasped as educational, even if it may remain just an act of further accumulation of knowledge and competencies that can be gathered through individual learning processes rather than through intentional educational support. European policies emphasize a shift from teaching to learning, which has contributed to an individualization of processes and the replacement of education by employability. Consequentially, the responsibility to gather merits or competencies lies outside the education system, and instead, with the individual. Such an individualized process is against the collective tradition of most professions that was developed through university studies in the past centuries, and particularly throughout the 20th century.

In conclusion, we contend that there is a lack of a holistic educational approach for mobility; hence people rely much more upon their own individual competencies and adaptation, and they find their own way to redefine their citizenship and professional identities after the experience of working abroad, where being a foreigner is much more the case than feeling European. We find that this causes Europeans to become disillusioned with the opportunities of mobility within the EU.