Support for the mobility of the highly skilled

The knowledge-based societies of Western Europe and North America are based on highly qualified workers. The increasing knowledge intensity means an increasing demand for well-qualified specialists for all countries. To safeguard and improve a country's situation in international competition, it is therefore essential to support scientific exchanges and to make the country attractive for highly qualified immigrants. To safeguard the stock of skilled workers in Germany and to steer the migration of highly qualified specialists, the German government, in July 2008, implemented an action programme whose main component is a law to steer labour migration. This law took effect at the beginning of this year. This article describes the most important features of this law as well as other support programmes for academic exchanges as well as the measures of 15 other OECD countries for the promotion of the mobility of the highly skilled.