Immigration will contribute to growth in developed countries in 2023, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development says

Immigration supported growth in developed countries last year, a period marked by severe labor shortages, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said in a report published on Thursday.

“The year 2023 was marked by particularly significant immigration flows in certain OECD economies,” the international organization wrote in its report, citing in particular the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Spain and Australia.

“This development has had a positive impact on labor supply and has generally benefited GDP growth” through the growth of the active population, the Paris-based institute continues.

The strongest contributions from immigration to labor force growth were observed in Portugal, Ireland, Canada, Spain and Australia, each contributing more than 1.5 points, OECD statistics show.

For most states analyzed, this contribution is much higher than the average contribution level recorded between 2010 and 2019.

For France, the contribution of foreign-born labor to the growth of the active population was almost 0.5 percentage points.

The global economy has been hit hard by an increase in labor shortages since the COVID-19 pandemic, in the eurozone as well as in the United States and Japan, according to OECD figures released on Thursday.

The positive or negative contribution of immigration to the economy is a topic that is regularly discussed against the backdrop of debates on security and identity, and is the subject of numerous analytical works.

In 2021, the Economic Analysis Council (CAE), an organization dependent on Matignon, confirmed that qualified immigration was an “advantage” that needed to be developed for the French economy.

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