CMR Podcast - GS4S mini-series #1: Mahdi Ghodsi on the role of skills shortages in migration aspirations in the Western Balkans

Welcome to the CMR Podcast's mini-series about the Horizon Europe project GS4S – Global Strategy for Skills, Migration and Development. In this project – running from 2024 to 2026 - fourteen partners from ten countries seek to better understand global skills shortages in the Digital, Care, and Construction sectors, and foster skills development through innovative analyses. The project proposes multi-level evidence-based policies on labour migration governance and alternative ways to address these shortages in six regions: EU, EEA, Western Balkan, Middle East and Northern Africa, West Africa, and South/South-East Asia. In a mini-series of six podcasts, we will present some of GS4S results, and discuss their policy implications.

In the first episode of the GS4S mini-series, Colleen Boland and Ksenija Ivanović have a conversation with Mahdi Ghodsi, an Economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw), one of partner organizations at GS4S.

Ghodsi has extensive experience in applied econometrics, macroeconomic modelling, and data science, with a particular focus on global markets, trade policy, trade regulations, financial and labour market analysis, migration policy, economics of sanctions, and Iran's economy. Recently, he led GS4S research on the role of skills shortages in shaping migration aspirations in the Western Balkans.

In this episode, Ghodsi discusses the relevance and key findings of the GS4S research. He reflects on challenges encountered during the process, and how these were overcome to result in novel indicators of skills shortages. The episode also digs deeper into the policy implications of skills-oriented migration from the Western Balkans to the European Union.

The Horizon Europe project GS4S was funded by the European Union

Shownotes

Horizon Europe GS4S project: Home - GS4S

Working paper (English): Beckers, P., Ghodsi, M., Ivanović, K., Leitner, S., Poeschel, F., & Sabouniha, A. (2024). Skills-oriented migration in the Western Balkans: Linking workers' migration aspirations to skill shortages in destination and origin countries. Global Strategy for Skills, Migration and Development (GS4S). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14163620

Working paper (Serbo-Croatian): Beckers, P., Ghodsi, M., Ivanović, K., Leitner, S., Poeschel, F., & Sabouniha, A. (2024). Migracije na Zapadnom Balkanu usmjerene na vještine: povezivanje aspiracija radnika ka migracijama sa nedostatkom vještina u zemljama odredišta i porijekla. Global Strategy for Skills, Migration and Development (GS4S). https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.32089.94560/1

Policy brief: Ghodsi, M., Ivanović, K., Leitner, S., Beckers, P., & de Lange, T. (2024). The impact of migration to the EU on labour shortages in the Western Balkans: Policy implications. Global Strategy for Skills, Migration and Development (GS4S). https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.29350.95049/1