Migration in the EU- Between Brain Drain and Cheap Workforce Transfer

The migration in the European Union is an effect of the income differences between member states, but also a result of the globalization trend. Still, in the WesternEuropean countries not all the citizens that migrate generate the brain drain phenomenon and many of them are just recognized as cheap workforce and are considered providers for jobs with the lowest level of qualifications. This paper aims to create a classification of EU-15 countries based on the level of education of the immigrants and analyse the remittances sent by Romanian immigrants. Based on data provided by OECD, Eurostat, World Bank, the paper’s findings provides valuable information regarding the exchange of workforce in the EU. The main methods of refining data are Principal Component Analysis and the multiple regression. The paper’s results can be considered a good start point for a wider vision over migration’s social reasons in the EU.