Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK, and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. © 2008 The Authors Journal Compilation © 2008 IOM International Migration Vol. 46 (2) 2008 ISSN 0020-7985 * Research Institute for Labour Economics and Labour Law, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. ** Administrator at the OECD, Directorate for Labour, Employment and Social Affairs, Non- Member Economies and International Migration Division, Paris. At the time of writing, Thomas Liebig was with the Research Institute for Labour Economics and Labour Law, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily refect those of the OECD or of its member countries. *** Research Institute for Household and Consumer Economics, University of Hohenheim-Stuttgart, Germany. Migration Policy and Industrial Structure: The Case of Switzerland Leonhard Becker*, Thomas Liebig**, and Alfonso Sousa-Poza*** AbstrAct Structural change in OECD countries, emphasizing knowledge-based sectors, has led to an increasing demand for highly skilled labour. One means of meeting this demand has been to implement a selective immigration policy. Such policies, however, have been criticized for channelling labour into low- producing sectors and occupations, hampering structural change. Proponents of such criticism point to Switzerland’s former policy of channelling immigrants into so-called seasonal sectors, a practice abandoned in the early 1990s, as having contributed to Switzerland’s low growth rates. To assess this, we here analyse the amended migration policy’s effects on skill structure and sectoral distribution of immigration fows using data from the Swiss Census of 1990 and 2000 to determine whether the new policy has led to an immigrant infow more adapted to the processes of structural change. We fnd that the share of highly skilled immigrants has increased notably under the new migration policy. Our analysis also shows an important change in the sectoral focus of the new arrival infow. Not only have fewer immigrants been