The analysis of labour supply in South Mediterranean Countries indicates that only a package of long term policies can foster employment creation. The quality of education systems needs to be improved to deliver good employees for companies and, potentially, new entrepreneurs. Social security protection needs to be extended to the private sector to make it more attractive to workers and to reduce informality, whereby it strongly contributes to the endogenous creation of opportunities. Institutional reform at the government level and in the market can significantly support this process. In the medium term, the combination of a growing population and low educational attainment with poor labour opportunities in the region, will only serve as a push factor and foster outflows of migrants.

Using a sustainable migration policy framework that benefits both origins and destinations remains of crucial importance. Lastly, our research also indicates that data availability in the region is a major obstacle to identifying labour market problems and formulating appropriate policy measures but also to monitoring their implementation.