International Organization for Migration (IOM)

for instance, for positions where candidates hold a master degree from a renowned
foreign university and when both candidates and employers (along with previous
employers) are fluent in English.
Depending on the qualifications required from the foreign workers and the type of
employers (medium to large firms, small firms or families), one can consider different
means of intervention to facilitate both the recruiting from abroad and the access
of migrants to the Italian labour market (hence, the recruiting of foreign workers
already present in the country).
Bilateral agreements
In the last decade Italy has developed a specific diplomatic agenda in order to
conclude bilateral agreements with migration source countries for the regulation
and management of migratory flows. The central idea of these agreements is that
countries that accept collaboration with Italy in the enforcement of its migration
policy (for example, countries that accept the repatriation of their citizens who were
expelled from Italy for being undocumented) should receive a preferable treatment
when it comes to legal access to the Italian labour market. So far, Italy has signed
bilateral agreements on migration flows with the following countries: Morocco and
Egypt (2005), Albania (2008), Moldova (2011), Sri Lanka and Tunisia (2011). 58
Ideally, such agreements should induce a profitable exchange of information on both
the available foreign manpower and the actual needs of the Italian labour market.
Other than the mere number of required/available workers, this information should
also specify the professional skills and the work experience of the candidates.
Additionally, Italian employers should have access to specially provided lists which
contain information on the workers who are willing to move to Italy. Moreover,
these agreements should incentivize the setting up of special professional training
programmes and Italian language courses in the source countries.
This is a potentially promising strategy to foster recruiting from abroad. Nevertheless,
we are not aware of any study which has attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of
similar agreements. If it is true that the countries who signed these bilateral agreements
obtained specific quotas – within the quota set by the “Flows Decrees” – reserved for
them, given the way the quota system works in practice, it is hard to quantify how
many “authentic” new entries of workers were implied by these bilateral agreements. 59
Attracting highly qualified workers
Even if the recruiting of highly qualified workers could efficiently be done from
a distance, several commentators have pointed out that Italy should dramatically
58 For more details regarding these bilateral agreements, see: http://www.lavoro.gov.it/Lavoro/md/
AreaSociale/Immigrazione/flussi_migratori/.
59 The very limited numbers of the online database FLEXI (see Section 3), for instance, seem to suggest
that this may still be a fairly marginal option.
country studIes – ITALY
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