International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Allasino, Reyneri, Venturini, and Zincone, (2004) conducted the only study of this
kind in the Italian context. Focusing on three major Italian cities (Turin, Rome
and Naples), they used actors of Italian and Moroccan nationality to apply for jobs
and tested the level of discrimination at three stages: 1) application: whether the
employer accepts to evaluate the candidate’s application; 2) job interview: whether
the candidate is invited to an interview; 3) job offer: whether the candidate is
offered the job. They find a fairly impressive 41 per cent rate of (net) cumulative
discrimination. This figure implies that in more than 40 per cent of the valid cases
they consider (that is, applications for the same job made by a native and a Moroccan
candidate) the Moroccan candidate is discriminated against at one of the three stages
and, therefore, eliminated from the selection process. They find that the degree
of discrimination is strongest at the first stage of the selection process and then
decreases in the following two. They also find a lower rate of discrimination “among
medium to large companies, whose more standardized procedures should to some
extent prevent foreign applicants from being rejected at the first contact.” ((Allasino
et al., 2004: 54).
Economists distinguish between preference discrimination and statistical
discrimination. In the first case, discrimination is based on preferences: employers
who distrust or do not like a particular ethnic/national group will systematically
refuse to hire a member of that group (or will pay him/her a lower salary than
comparable workers of other ethnic/national groups). This is essentially an expression
of racism and xenophobia. Statistical discrimination, instead, may take place even
if the employers are not racist at all, but if they face some important information
asymmetries. For instance, if they cannot fully assess the quality of an immigrant
worker – because they are not fully able to evaluate his/her foreign qualifications,
his/her experience gained abroad, and so on – they may simply assume that he/
she must be as good as the average member of his/her ethnic/national group. This
implies that a high quality worker who belongs to a group with a poor reputation will
find it harder to get a job. If immigrants, or specific groups of immigrants, have a
bad reputation (with respect to natives) one can observe discrimination in the labour
market even if the employers are not necessarily showing racist attitudes.
Devising public interventions to reduce discrimination driven by a lack of information
implies thinking about ways to improve the level – and quality – of information that
employers have about immigrant candidates (recognizing foreign qualifications and
skills; providing correct information on the labour market outcomes of groups that
are erroneously considered as low performers, and so forth). Addressing preference
discrimination, on the other hand, requires an effective intervention on racist
attitudes and xenophobic behaviour.
2.2. Supply side: migrants’ perspective
The channels used to find jobs for immigrant workers in Italy can be “distributed
along a continuum which goes from the maximum degree of informality – that is,
personal contacts – to the maximum degree of formality – represented by the Public
country studIes – ITALY
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