Krum Garkov, former member of the Cabinet of the Prime Minister of Bulgaria and an EU Policy Advisor to VFS Global, asks how European governments can help employers address the labour shortage crisis?
With the latest figures showing the job vacancy rate in the euro area increased to 2.2 per cent in the latter stages of 2025, and approximately 2.5 million job vacancies across the EU, it’s clear that European employers are suffering a significant labour market crunch. Some of the bloc’s biggest hitters are suffering the most – Germany with 1.7 million vacancies and more than 250,000 unfilled positions in France, while other European countries are also impacted, such as around 368,000 vacant roles in the Netherlands and close to 120,000 in Austria.
All this is coming at a time when the EU is experiencing historic low unemployment. The unemployment rate stood at 5.8 per cent in January this year, with just under 13 million people out of work.
This ‘staffing paradox’ highlights a growing skills mismatch – a gap between required skills and available labour – rather than a lack of available workers. The European Commission has documented shortages in more than 40 different industry sectors, including healthcare, construction, hospitality, agriculture, transport, logistics, ICT, and technical fields, and a survey found that around two in three SMEs in the EU face staffing shortages. The EU is also losing roughly one million workers annually to retirement, a trend projected to continue until 2050. And by 2100, the EU’s working-age population could be reduced by over 50 million compared to 2022 levels.
Taking action
To address this, the European Commission’s Action Plan on labour and skills shortages includes a package of measures that includes upskilling European workers, improving job matching mechanisms and expanding legal migration pathways. An important development has been the closer integration of visa policy, migration management and labour market strategy. It’s encouraging for employers that visa policy has evolved beyond travel authorisation and is increasingly viewed as a key component of Europe’s labour mobility framework. Instruments like the EU Blue Card, national shortage occupation lists and bilateral agreements are now being employed more strategically. However, skills validation and job‑readiness assurance has been a missing layer. Ensuring there is robust skills assessment can be the mechanism that turns legal migration channels into employer‑trusted pipelines.
On that note, the EU Talent Pool – the first EU-wide platform designed to support the recruitment of skilled non-EU nationals – will be launched shortly. A new online platform will aim to further structure international recruitment, matching jobseekers from non-EU countries with European employers through suitable vacancies based on their skills. It will help facilitate recruitment from countries like India, for example, which produces thousands of skilled construction, hospitality, and manufacturing professionals every year – exactly the sort of roles that Europe urgently needs.
But as moves to facilitate legal labour mobility increase, robust administrative capacity will be pivotal. The effective rollout of the EU Talent Pool and broader labour migration initiatives relies on Member States enhancing critical front-end operations such as identity verification, document authentication, risk assessment and fraud prevention – something many national Ministries responsible for employment will not have the capacity for given the higher volumes of applications. Such execution must start at the front end: confirming who the applicant is, what skills they genuinely have, and whether their documents and declarations can be trusted – before employers invest and before authorities allocate scarce processing time.
Creating mobility through ESPs
This is where external service providers (ESPs) – such as the ones that already provide visa processing services for governments – can become pivotal contributors to the success of labour migration policies. ESPs, with their expertise in identity verification are uniquely positioned to support these ambitions in several critical ways.
They already operate global visa application centres and have robust digital platforms to meet these requirements, managing high volumes of applicants and ensuring information security in full compliance with EU data protection regulations. Such capacity to absorb fluctuations in demand through surge management will be essential as labour mobility increases.
Beyond their administrative role, ESPs may actively facilitate the connection between European employers and skilled third-country workers. They could support the EU Talent Pool and similar initiatives by conducting comprehensive pre-screening and credentials verification, ensuring that employers are matched with qualified and vetted candidates.
This kind of ‘skills management partnership ’is already happening in Malta, where the Skills Pass scheme is addressing labour shortages in the tourism sector. External candidates complete online modules to achieve a skills certificate, after which they book a skills verification interview which takes place at a visa application centre, alongside their visa application itself.
The separate processes of skills verification, document verification and visa application are packaged together, enabling easier access for foreign hospitality workers and speeding up the process for employers. This stands in contrast to experiences where employers have reported frustration that other partnerships have not always led to workers being able to move in a timely fashion.
Apart from streamline new workers through the system, it also provides a critical element of quality control, significantly lowering the risk of unqualified foreign workers being recruited. Skills assessment is embedded directly into the migration journey – before arrival – reducing risk. This was important given Malta was ‘inundated with unqualified workers’ when the sector’s re-opening after the Covid-19 pandemic caused a spate of panic recruitment by employers. Neither does the system place any significant financial burden on the Maltese government, with operational costs fully financed by candidates’ fees.
In a similar fashion, ESPs could also help identify the next wave of skilled workers Europe needs in terms of bringing students to the continent. In Austria, for example, the three major technical universities in Vienna, Graz and Leoben have partnered with an ESP to streamline access for qualified Indian engineering and technology graduates to advanced master’s programmes. The ESP is pre-selecting and identifying students, assessing them, verifying their identity and helping them with their visa application, making it far simpler and faster for the universities. Masters graduates are then eligible for a one-year visa extension in Austria, enabling them to gain work experience and helping employers meet skills gaps.
Europe is making the right policy moves to address the chronic labour shortages across the bloc. But the future of any labour mobility strategy will be shaped not only by legislation, but by the quality, integrity and scalability of the systems that deliver it. By bridging the gap between policy ambitions and practical implementation, ESPs can play a key role in ensuring that Europe can attract and integrate the international talent it needs to remain competitive in the decades ahead.
