Abstract
After applying quite restrictive immigration policies for several decades, many developed European countries have started to partly re‐appraise their approach to migration. The problem of ageing and shrinking populations has realized the need to attract more work forces, especially highly‐qualified professionals.The nature of Czech migration policy substantially changed under the influence of a shortage of labour and demographic trend.
While a liberal approach to foreign workers´ access to the labour market between 1990 and 1997 gave place to a more restrictive policy, from the end of the 1990s on, there has been a shift from a passive to a more active and systematic approach.One of the “opening doors”measures was the launch of a pilot programme (fronm 2003) and more recently (from 2009) came into the force the system of “Green cards”.Significant parts of the labour market comprise also the irregular migrants.