On 14 November 2024, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released the International Migration Outlook 2024. A specific chapter provides an overview of migrant entrepreneurship in OECD countries since the mid-2000s. It shows inter alia:

• The increasing weight of migrants among entrepreneurs: In 2022, there were 10 million migrant entrepreneurs in the OECD. Immigrants accounted for 17% of the self-employed on average across OECD countries, up from 11% in 2006. The increase in the migrant population in the OECD explains 80% of the increasing share of migrants among entrepreneurs; while 20% was due to migrants being increasingly more likely to be self-employed.
   
• The impact of migrant entrepreneurs on innovation and job creation: A simple calculation shows that, from 2011 to 2021, more than 3.9 million jobs were created through migrant self-employment in the 25 OECD countries with available data. This corresponds to 15% of the total employment growth in these years.
   
• The overrepresentation of migrants among entrepreneurs in specific sectors: Migrant entrepreneurs create jobs in all sectors of activity but are over-represented among entrepreneurs in accommodation and food services and transport and storage in all OECD regions with available data.
   
• The way entrepreneurship helps migrants bypass difficulties in finding wage employment: In two-thirds of countries, newly self-employed immigrants are more likely to have been previously unemployed. Immigrants are also more likely to report having chosen self-employment due to difficulties in finding wage employment in OECD EU-EFTA countries.
   
• The greatest probability for migrant entrepreneurs to exit self-employment, in particular, to exit to unemployment: In some countries, immigrants are over 50% more likely to exit self-employment than the native-born, including Greece, Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, and Portugal.
   
• The need for services targeted at migrants to support entrepreneurship: Programmes that support migrant entrepreneurs through the different stages of business creation, through training, mentoring, legal advice, and access to financing have emerged as good practice and are in place in several OECD countries, such as Italy or Ireland.

For further details, please read the chapter "Migrant entrepreneurship in OECD countries" (pp. 121-180) online.