The global migration of health professionals represents a form of labour migration that is deeply embedded in global inequalities of power and distribution. State and private recruitment practices—particularly between the Global South and Global North but also among European countries—shape asymmetric flows of skilled labour, raising concerns about "care drain," uneven access to healthcare, and the commodification of workers as scarce global resources. International regulatory instruments such as the WHO Global Code of Practice seek to mitigate injustice and balance the rights of the parties involved. However, fundamental ethical questions remain concerning fair recruitment, compensation for training costs, criteria for sustainable workforce development and the balancing of health rights across borders. This paper approaches these questions from the perspective of Catholic social ethics, which—especially since Laudato Si'—has increasingly emphasized comprehensive sustainability and the notion of global common goods. We ask how these principles might provide normative guidance for the international governance of skilled migration, while also arguing that they require conceptual development to address the specifically international, power-laden, and actor-plural regulatory field in which health worker migration takes place. In constructive dialogue with debates on social sustainability and global commons, the paper clarifies how Catholic social ethics can contribute to an ethics of governance attentive to structural injustice, human dignity, and the conditions under which labour migration may be morally justified. Building on this analysis, the paper develops an ethically grounded framework for assessing global recruitment practices within increasingly competitive global health labour markets.