FTAs boost global demand for Indian talent, expand mobility options

Mobility provisions in India's trade deals are opening new visa pathways for skilled workers, as countries across Europe, Asia and Oceania seek Indian talent to address labour shortages

As part of its free trade agreement (FTA) with India, which the two countries signed on Monday, New Zealand is working to create a special three-year visa for skilled professionals from India, particularly those working in the healthcare, information technology, engineering and construction sectors.

 

Mobility pacts, in fact, have become a key part of recent trade deals India has either signed or is negotiating, including with the United Kingdom, European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and others.

 

The India-New Zealand FTA will lead to a dedicated quota of 5,000 temporary visas for Indian professionals working in the healthcare, IT, engineering and construction sectors. These visas, valid for three years, are intended to address New Zealand’s projected labour shortage.

 

Provisions on student mobility and post-study work visas will guarantee students the right to work for 20 hours per week during their academic sessions and establish pathways for post-study residency – up to three years for STEM graduates and for doctoral scholars. There are nearly 300,000 persons of Indian origin living in New Zealand, almost 5 per cent of its population.

 

During the recent visit of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung to New Delhi between April 19 and 21, both countries concurred on seeking ways to make visa and immigration processes more efficient. According to an agreement on shipbuilding cooperation announced on April 20, it was noted during the discussions between the two delegations that India’s rapidly growing seafarer pool – currently at about 320,000 plus with a strong growth in women seafarers – allows Korean shipowners to recruit them to support Korean-flag operations.

 

Establishing processes for easier mobility of Indian professionals and workers to the 27-member European Union (EU) is also a key part of the India-EU FTA negotiations. Europe is experiencing an acute ageing population crisis driven by demographic change, with an increased elderly population significantly increasing demand for health and care services as well as geriatric care, noted a recent paper published by the Indian Council of World Affairs, which is an arm of India’s Ministry of External Affairs.

 

According to Yashna Agarwalla, who authored the paper, workers and professionals employed in the European healthcare are also ageing. In 13 European countries, 40 per cent of the doctors are over the age of 55. “This trend has prompted many European countries to ease immigration policies and expand recruitment of foreign-trained health professionals,” Agarwalla said.

 

According to publicly available data, which the paper quoted, 33 per cent of the doctors and 25 per cent nurses in the EU are expected to retired in the next decade. The shortage in Italy, Germany and France will be more severe than the rest of the EU. According to the Organisation of European Cooperation and Development, or OECD, 2024 report, ‘Health at a Glance: Europe’, 20 EU member states have reported shortages of doctors, and 15 member states have expressed their need for nurses.

 

The consequences of these shortages are already showing up in tragic ways. According to the ICWA paper, in the UK, insufficient nursing staff in a Mid Staffordshire hospital was seen as a causal factor in the higher number of patient deaths.

 

The 2024 OECD report indicates a 17 per cent increase in the influx of foreign-trained doctors and a 72 percent increase in foreign-trained nurses in Europe. However, the migration of Indian caregivers to other countries would also cause a "care drain" from India, especially as its elderly population is set to increase in the coming decades.  

 

During the visit of Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker to India from April 14 to 17, the two delegations welcomed the meetings of the subgroups on healthcare personnel and vocational education and training held in March 2026. Austria plans to develop a pre-check register to match the level of qualification of Indian skilled workers with its own requirements for occupations that are facing a shortage.

 

But the needs of European countries, the 27-member EU block, Russia, and the UK, go beyond just healthcare workers. The India-UK FTA, called the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement, or CETA, likely to operationalised soon, will ease mobility for professionals across IT, healthcare, finance, and education. It will provide streamlined entry for contractual service suppliers, intra-corporate transferees, independent professionals, and others. The CETA’s Double Contribution Convention will save Indian firms and workers more than Rs 4,000 crore by removing the need for dual social security contributions.

 

The move to attract Indian talent comes at a time when the Donald Trump administration has seen as trying to make it more difficult for Indian skilled workers to migrate to the US. And with the number of Indian students enrolling in American universities falling, countries in Europe are keen to attract them as well as Indian skilled workers.

 

The number of Indian students enrolling in German universities, for example, has grown from 20,684 in 2022 to 34,702 in 2024. Also in 2024, the German visa centre in Bengaluru issued 36,000 visas for long-term stays, with that number increasing annually. Germany wants to create more opportunities for Indian skilled labour and students. In 2024, almost a third of all student visas globally were issued in India. Simultaneously, Germany is working to increase the number of schools in India that offer German as a foreign language from 58 partner schools to 1,000. Germany currently has almost 60,000 Indian students, which already makes them the largest cohort of international students.

 

A key bilateral agreement signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Tokyo on August 30, 2025, was an “action plan for India-Japan human resource exchange and cooperation”. This will target an exchange of more than 500,000 personnel in both directions over the next five years, including 50,000 skilled personnel and talent from India to Japan.

 

Singapore, during the visit of its Prime Minister Lawrence Wong to India in the first week of September in 2025, committed to developing a National Centre of Excellence in Chennai, which will create a skills certification framework and skill centres in sectors of mutual interest, and resolved to support state-level skilling cooperation with Singapore, such as the Singapore-Assam Nursing Talent Skills Cooperation.

 

Similarly, some Nordic countries, especially Sweden, are keen to attract more Indian students and skilled workers, as is Russia. The number of Indian students heading to Russia increased from 19,784 in 2022 to 31,444 in 2024. During Russian President Vladimir Putin’s December visit to India, the two sides signed agreements related to the mobility of skilled workers. French President Emmanuel Macron visited India in February and announced that France will host 30,000 Indian students by 2030. Later the same month, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said during Prime Minister Modi’s visit there, that Israel needed more Indian workers.