Green Skills Series: The Role of Green Skills and Sustainable Talent in Immigration Part 2

As governments and employers alike navigate the green transition, securing talent with green skills will be essential.

The first part of this blog series explored green skills and the place of immigration in helping address talent shortages in this space. This second instalment covers challenges as well as the actions employers can take to secure talent with green skills and ready their workforce for the skills needed for the green transition.

Challenges

• • • Skills/degree recognition. Many immigration systems focus on highly skilled talent, with eligibility requiring university-level educational certifications. However, a significant proportion of green skills roles do not require such qualifications. Instead, such positions require either no formal education training (especially if the worker already has professional experience) or only a short period of vocational training, or transitional upskilling. Meanwhile, many green skills roles may be unattractive to some highly skilled individuals given the mismatch between the requirements of the role and their actual qualifications.
    • Other sectors are too attractive. For many workers, the green skills sector is simply not attractive enough yet. Moving into the green sector does not result in an automatic pay increase. Rather, the pay and benefits are often either equal or better elsewhere, including the brown sector. Where salaries are equal, it may be difficult to convince talent to change to the green sector given the cost of entry – both time and money – is not justified in circumstances where one’s pay packet does not improve.
    • A global challenge. There are few, if any, countries which do not face some form of green skills labour shortage. It is a global problem. Accordingly, immigration alone cannot resolve the problem at a global level. Redistributing talent simply alleviates the problem in one country at the expense of another. Nonetheless, individual governments are still likely to adopt competitive immigration policies: seeking to attract the necessary workers regardless of talent shortages elsewhere.
    • Up-skilling/re-skilling not to scale. Current up-skilling and re-skilling efforts are not sufficiently at scale to address current need. Additionally, the lag period between training commencement and subsequent entry into the labour market reduces the ability of such programs to resolve labour market bottle necks in the short term, let alone immediately. Nonetheless, given that immigration alone cannot resolve the green skills shortage, up-skilling/re-skilling efforts will remain critical. In fact, many commentators note the need for a multi-modal approach that employs traditional immigration pathways alongside up-skilling/re-skilling programs and skills mobility pathways (SMPs).

Actions for employers 

Despite the current market and policy challenges, employers are still in a position to take the initiative, including through:

• • • Conducting internal audits of existing skills and experience capacities in order to achieve the best allocation of talent;
    • Seeking out talent recruitment opportunities, either via SMPs or general immigration pathways;
    • Re-skilling and up-skilling existing staff; and
    • Engaging with governments and stakeholders to ensure the private-sector voice is not lost. This may ensure that both SMP and general immigration pathways are adequately fit for purpose.

Looking ahead

• • • Green skills-specific visas and permits. Countries may look to establish green skills specific visas or permit pathways. Of course, given the broad scope of green skills, countries may limit such visas or permits to specific roles which have a clear green transition applicability. For instance, solar panel installation. However, they may also opt for a broader approach and look to assess on a case-by-case basis whether a role in question brings green dividends – for instance, an accountant whose role includes considerable green accounting requirements. Employers will need to be across the relevant opportunities as they emerge in each country.
    • Relaxed skills standards. More countries are expected to shift from focusing exclusively on high-level educational qualifications to instead recognizing adequate professional experience (in lieu of educational qualifications) or vocational training. In the green skills space, such a shift in paradigmatic thinking will be critical to resolve labour shortages. Going forward, employers are likely to find new avenues to access relevant talent.
    • Retention. In addition to developing and refining immigration pathways per se, governments will also continue to focus on retaining talent once they have arrived. This may be through implementing more relaxed family reunification options, easier naturalisation or providing more liberal work- and travel-related rights than are currently provided.
    • SMPs. Countries will continue to develop SMPs targeting specific green skills-related skill sets. That said, though such programs are promising, they often lack scale and, in many instances, may only be able to resolve a small portion of the labour market shortfall. Nonetheless, employers may find that a specific SMP is able to adequately address certain talent management challenges.
    • Subsidies and financial support. As part of catalysing transition to the green sector, governments in the short term may need to provide subsidies or financial support. This may be in the form of grants to support re-skilling (reducing the cost barrier to changing industries), or subsidies to improve the overall salary position of green sector workers. Employers should keep alive to possibilities in this space.

How Fragomen can help

Fragomen can help employers identify and take advantage of green skills immigration opportunities as they currently exist, and as they are likely to emerge.

Fragomen is at the forefront of monitoring immigration reforms, including in the green skills space:

• • • Current pathways. With its truly global footprint, Fragomen can assist employers uncover and access existing green skills-relevant immigration pathways.
    • Future opportunities. The firm has a dedicated knowledge team analysing trends and policy reforms and is frequently consulted on immigration policy and the formation of immigration laws. The team offers a unique vantage point and can assist with uncovering green skill opportunities at the national, regional and global levels.

By harnessing the power of Fragomen’s extensive experience and knowledge resources, your company can stay ahead of new and emerging green skills opportunities and meet any talent management challenges head-on.

Need to know more?

For questions or support regarding green skills and immigration, please contact Director Ana Sofia Walsh at [email protected] or Lead Analyst Dominic Dietrich at [email protected].

This blog was published on 4 September 2024, and due to the circumstances, there are frequent changes. To keep up to date with all the latest updates on global immigration, please subscribe to our alerts and follow us on LinkedIn, X, Facebook and Instagram.