Integration reduces the negative budget impact of asylum
Migration and globalization in times of upheaval Link
DI Johannes Berger
Head of the Labour Market and Social Security Research Section
From 2013 to 2016, 172,000 asylum applications were submitted in Austria. Refugee migration has a significant economic and fiscal impact. "Asylum should primarily be viewed from a humanitarian rather than an economic perspective," emphasizes Johannes Berger, Head of the Labour Market and Social Security research department at EcoAustria. "Nevertheless, the economic and fiscal effects must be considered from the outset." For example, the immigration of refugees increases the supply of labor, leads to additional private consumption and investment and increases GDP.
However, the analysis based on EcoAustria's PuMA macro model also shows that the population will increase more strongly, which will dampen per capita GDP. Employment will be higher than it would be without refugee migration. However, this will not be enough to fully absorb the increase in the labor supply, especially among low-skilled workers. "Overall, refugee migration in the years 2013-2018 will increase the unemployment rate by 0.4 percentage points by 2020. This will primarily affect the group of refugees themselves. Among residents, however, the unemployment rate will hardly change," explains Berger.
Due to the economic effects, refugee migration also has an impact on public finances: "Both public revenue and public expenditure are increasing noticeably," says Ludwig Strohner, Head of Public Finance Research at EcoAustria. However, the net effect on the budget balance is negative in the short and medium term. "The strongest effects occur in the years 2016-2018 with a negative balance of 0.4-0.5% of GDP in each year. In the following years, however, the balance improves significantly - particularly due to better integration into the labor market," explains Strohner.
Johannes Berger and Ludwig Strohner have now published the results of their analysis in a contribution to the commemorative publication "Migration and Globalization in Times of Upheaval", which was published to mark the retirement of migration expert Gudrun Biffl.
