Ideal Jobs and International Student Mobility in the Enlarged European Union

Abstract

After the enlargement of the European Union (EU) with ten new countries on the 1st of May 2004, international labour mobility within the EU has become a rather contentious issue. This article looks at international mobility for a highly skilled group of people: university students in Business and Commerce. In this context, we first investigate what students across Europe are looking for in their ideal job and show that students from both Eastern Europe and Turkey differ substantially from other European countries in this respect. In the second part of this article, we assess whether students are likely to move internationally by looking at the extent to which they are attached to their own country/language. This analysis shows that, overall, students from Eastern Europe and Turkey are less keen to work internationally than students from many other European countries. On the other hand, the final part of the article shows that students from Eastern Europe and Turkey generally seem well prepared for international work in terms of their language skills. They prefer to work in Anglophone and Southern European countries and previous international experience and language skills are shown to be a major influence on the extent and direction of international mobility.