In France, 27% of respondents cited immigration as one of the two biggest issues facing the country, a figure closely mirrored in Germany where 26% ranked it similarly. These findings, from a YouGov survey across six European nations, reveal how the manufactured moral panic around migration continues to dominate public discourse, diverting attention from the deepening economic and social crises that truly define Europe's political order. Denmark also saw immigration cited by 24% of respondents, placing it among the top concerns.
Manufacturing a Crisis
While political elites stoke fears of migration, economic anxieties remain widespread. In France, 47% of respondents ranked the economy among their top two issues, with 68% expecting conditions to worsen over the next 12 months. Germany saw 44% cite the economy as a major concern, and 58% anticipated a decline. Germany's industrial production, despite a recent uptick, remains below pre-pandemic levels, with recovery described as fragile. Its export-led economy faces pressure from weaker demand in the US and China, particularly impacting the automotive industry. France's first-quarter economic growth stalled, as the Iran war weighed heavily on energy prices, while political deadlock complicated efforts to improve public finances. These are the material conditions that affect all workers, yet the focus is often shifted to those crossing borders.
Housing and Healthcare Failures
Spain's most pressing concern was housing, cited by 49% of respondents – the highest-rated issue across all six countries. This reflects a housing crisis that has dominated political debate over the past year. House prices rose by almost 13% year-on-year at the end of 2025, marking the fastest increase in Spain in years and among the fastest in Europe. In 2025, a worker would need to devote the equivalent of 8.4 years of average salary to purchase an 80-square-metre home. Regions like the Balearic Islands and Madrid are among the most expensive, while short-term lets in cities such as Barcelona have long fueled local anger over the lack of affordable housing. Healthcare and the economy followed housing as concerns, both selected by 25% of respondents.
Italy stood out as the only country where healthcare emerged as the biggest concern, with 43% of respondents ranking it among their top two issues. The report highlighted that Italy's public health services face mounting pressure from staff shortages and an ageing population. The country is short of an estimated 175,000 nurses, with low pay, heavy workloads, and limited career prospects contributing to an exodus of trained medical professionals to other European countries. These systemic failures of public services are often blamed on migrants, rather than decades of austerity and neoliberal policies.
Capital's AI Restructuring
Meanwhile, capital continues its relentless restructuring of the labor market, largely unhindered by borders. A separate analysis found that in four of the five European countries surveyed, more than half of all AI-labelled job titles are now beyond traditional tech jobs. Germany led with 59% of AI-labelled titles outside tech, followed by the Netherlands at 58%. In France and the UK, 54% of AI-touched job titles were outside tech occupations. Spain was the exception, with 64% of AI-labelled job titles still in tech roles. Employers are not only hiring AI specialists but are also adding AI to the titles of jobs where the use of AI tools is required, indicating its growing centrality.
AI-labelled job titles in postings have increased rapidly across Europe. For the first quarter of 2026, Germany led with 288 such titles, up from 72 four years ago. The UK had 160, France 138, the Netherlands 84, and Spain 81. These figures were all below 1% of total job titles in 2022 but have now risen significantly, reaching 4.2% in Germany and 3.3% in France. Pawel Adrjan, Director of Economic Research at Indeed, noted that "AI-related skills, tasks and tools are becoming mainstream in the labour market." He added that including AI in a job title is a deliberate choice, signifying its central role. The adoption of AI tools has accelerated, with 15% of people aged 16 to 74 in the EU using generative AI for work last year. New non-tech job types have emerged, from "Solution Sales Executive - AI, Data and Analytics" in the UK to HR managers in Germany seeking to "use AI in HR to increase efficiency." This transformation of work impacts all, yet the political focus remains on criminalizing human movement rather than addressing the systemic shifts driven by capital and technology.