Was the recent refugee influx harmful for the European labor market?

This thesis evaluates the recent refugee influx from the European labour market point of view. The data is taken for the period from 2010 to 2019 for the 28 European countries, EU 27 and the United Kingdom. For the empirical analysis, the macroeconomic partial elasticity panel data model was chosen. Since macroeconomic and panel data models are not common in the migration studies, the empirical model is considered to be contributive to the field of migration analyses. There are four examined labour market indicators serving as explained variables: labour productivity, annual earnings, hours worked per week and labour force participation rate. Three out of four variables could be found in the previous literature on the theme. Labour productivity is considered to be indicator newly examined in the migration studies and thus contributive to the field. The main explanatory variable is the share of the refugee population. The empirical analysis shows that growth in the refugee population share is associated with a decrease in all four indicators. The explanatory variable of interest is not significant in any model, even though all models as a whole are significant. The theoretical part examines European legislation that led to the recent refugee influx and the theory behind migration and labour market.