ABSTRACTLabor migration from the Mediterranean region to industrial areas of the Northwest has been significant in rearranging the population of Europe over the past twenty years. Although movement between various combinations of emigrant and immigrant countries has differed widely in time and circumstances, an overall consistency of influences and patterns becomes evident upon analysis of the migratory flows.In the country of immigration, the interplay of employment possibilities and available workers produces a labor requirement which the government evaluates in light of its long‐range objectives, its alternative courses of policy, and the pressures to which it is subjected. In the country of emigration, economic and perceptive factors play a major role in creating a group of potential migrants, which the government considers in terms of resource evaluation and the demands of internal development.The net labor demand and net emigrant supply filtered through by the respective governments are co‐ordinated through an organizational framework, although clandestine migration is increasingly circumventing established procedures. Demographic consequences of the resultant net labor migration are subsequently influenced by the addition of family members or the return of workers to their country of ori