15/06/2026
Spending Thousands to Work in Food Delivery: The Shattered Dreams of South Asian Youth in Europe
Young migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka are paying up to $20,000 to reach Europe â only to discover that the jobs they were promised barely exist.
International Desk
đ§đŠ Bangladesh
đĩđ° Pakistan
đŽđŗ India
đąđ° Sri Lanka
đĒđē Europe
15.4%
South Asia youth unemployment rate (2025, World Bank)
~$15,000
Average cost paid by migrants to reach Europe
3%
EU asylum recognition rate for Bangladeshi nationals (2025, EUAA)
Every year, tens of thousands of young South Asians leave home believing Europe will offer opportunity, stability, and a future unavailable in their own countries. Most are between 20 and 25 years old. They come from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and Sri Lanka â countries struggling with rising youth unemployment, weak labor markets, and limited economic mobility.
For many families, migration has become an investment strategy. Parents sell land, mortgage homes, or take large loans to raise the $10,000 to $20,000 often required to finance a journey abroad through student visas, work permits, or irregular migration routes.
âLeaving is no longer viewed as a difficult choice â it is viewed as success itself. Families save for IELTS courses, visa applications, and recruitment agents. Staying behind is increasingly seen as failure.â
But the reality awaiting many migrants in Europe is far removed from the promises sold to them.
According to UK Home Office data, the nationalities with the highest number of asylum claims from visa holders in the year ending September 2025 included Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, and Sri Lanka. Pakistani nationals alone accounted for 5,570 asylum claims from student visa holders â equivalent to 14% of all study visas issued to Pakistani citizens during that period.
The language barrier and the shrinking job market
Even migrants who arrive legally often struggle to survive financially. European employers overwhelmingly prefer workers with fluent local language skills, leaving many newcomers unable to compete for stable employment.
At the same time, sectors that traditionally absorbed migrant labor â including hospitality, restaurants, and retail â have not fully recovered since the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, food delivery platforms have become the default source of income for many new arrivals.
These gig-economy jobs offer little security. Workers face unstable hours, low pay, physical risk, and almost no long-term career prospects.
A second structural challenge is now reshaping the European labor market: artificial intelligence.
Economists from ING Group estimate that nearly 50.2 million Europeans â approximately 32% of the workforce â face significant disruption or automation risk from AI in their current occupations. In Germany alone, employment researchers projected in 2025 that up to 1.6 million jobs could be transformed or eliminated within the next 15 years.
Migrants are especially vulnerable to these changes because they often lack language fluency, professional networks, and recognized qualifications.
A crisis rooted in South Asia
Analysts argue that the deeper failure lies not in Europe, but in South Asia itself.
The World Bank estimated South Asiaâs youth unemployment rate at 15.4% in 2025 â the highest among Asian subregions. Governments across Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and Sri Lanka have struggled to create enough formal-sector jobs for millions of young people entering the workforce every year.
Critics say migration has effectively become an unofficial economic policy: a pressure-release valve for domestic unemployment rather than a solution to it.
Instead of investing sufficiently in vocational training, industrial development, and long-term employment planning, many governments continue to rely heavily on overseas migration and remittances.
A 2025 UN report noted that nearly one-quarter of all international migrants worldwide now originate from Asia. The same report described 2024 as the deadliest year on record for migrants in the region, with at least 2,514 deaths documented along migration routes.
Yet the departures continue because, for many young people, remaining at home feels even riskier.
âThe real solution lies in making staying a viable and respectable option â through structural reform, not political slogans.â
Italy alone received more than three-quarters of all Bangladeshi asylum applications filed in the European Union in 2025, according to the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA). However, the overall recognition rate for Bangladeshi applicants remained below 3%.
For many rejected applicants, the result is legal uncertainty, debt, and social humiliation. Returning home often means returning empty-handed while families remain trapped under enormous financial burdens.
The human cost is growing across both continents. Families are sinking into debt, young migrants are becoming stranded in legal limbo, and governments on both sides remain unprepared to address the scale of the crisis.
Until South Asian states treat youth employment as a long-term national priority rather than a political talking point, migration will remain a costly gamble that millions continue to take â despite the increasingly shrinking odds of success.
Sources
âĸ World Bank / FRED â Youth Unemployment Rate, South Asia (2025)
âĸ European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) â Bangladesh Situation Update, August 2025
âĸ ILO â Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024
âĸ UK House of Commons Library â Visa Policy Briefing, June 2026
âĸ UN News â Asia Migration Report, November 2025
âĸ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace â AI and European Labour Markets, February 2026
âĸ The Friday Times (Pakistan) â Brain Drain Analysis, January 2026
âĸ Centre for Future Generations â AI Labour Shocks, January 2026
