Voluntary Return Programmes: Could they Assuage the effects of the Economic Crisis?
To what extent the Voluntary Return Programmes for foreign workers can be helpful in order to decrease unemployment pressures in a context of economic crisis? In the background of lessons provided by experience in other countries, this paper analyzes the Spanish policy in that field.
About this study:
In November 2008 the Spanish government authorized a voluntary return program for foreign workers in order to decrease unemployment pressures in the wake of 2008/09 financial crisis. Voluntary return programs are not new. France appears to have been the first country which authorized them in the wake of the oil crisis of 1973/74. This paper analyzes the Spanish voluntary return program against the background of lessons provided by the thirty years long experience with similar programs in France. The aim of the paper is to assess to what extent could voluntary return programs help both the developed and the developing countries cope with the effects of the crisis.
This study is only available in English.
Author: Piotr Plewa, Publication of the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (Working Paper No. 75, University of Oxford)