Portuguese Migrants in the German Labor Market: Selection and Performance1

Abstract

The labor market performance of Portuguese workers in Germany is analyzed in this article. While previous work has compared wages and characteristics of migrants to natives only, this study also matches the data set with an equivalent survey from the sending country. The findings show that Portuguese migrants as a whole are negatively selected, with the exception of blue-collar workers, the largest group among the movers. The finding that Portuguese migrants earn more than comparable Germans indicates that they have higher unobservable skills.