International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Improving Access to Labour market Information for migrants and employers
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reform its legislation in this area (Boeri, Brücker, Doquier, and Rapoport, 2012).
At the moment, Italy has no policy related to attracting highly skilled workers from
abroad. 60 An interesting proposal in this direction would be the adoption of a points
system which allows immigrants with sufficiently high qualifications (for example
Masters degrees and PhDs) the possibility of legally entering the country to look
for a job (Peri, 2011) (Boeri and Garibaldi, 2011). Still, the recognition of foreign
qualifications remains a crucial issue here.
Entering for job search
As already discussed, there are occupations and employers (small business and
families) that tend to necessitate a direct contact between employers and workers.
This is exactly what currently happens in Italy through irregular entry and irregular
employment, and what the amnesties and the quota system allow to legalize ex post.
In this respect, there is a broad consensus that the idea of permitting the entry of
immigrants ‘sponsored’ by other immigrants already resident in Italy, by firms, by
NGOs and so on, would be a welfare-enhancing policy. There persists a debate on
the details – sponsorship (Ambrosini, 2012) (Ambrosini, 2011c), self-sponsorship
(Briguglio, 2006), temporary residence permits for job search (Boeri and Garibaldi,
2011) (Peri, 2011) and so forth, – but barely any expert on migration issues would
deny the importance of such a r
References
Allasino, E. et al.
2004 Labour market discrimination against migrant workers in Italy. ILO - Intrenational Migration
Papers 67, Geneva.
Ambrosini, M.
2011 Surviving underground: irregular migrant, Italian families, invisible welfare. International
Journal of Social Welfarw. (4): 361-371.
2011b Immigration in Italy: Between Economic Acceptance and Political Rejection. Journal of
International Migration and Integration. Nov.11:1-20.
2011c Politiche di buon senso sull’immigrazione. www.lavoce.info.
2011d Quanta ipocrisia in un click day. www.lavoce.info.
2012 Oltre le sanatorie. www.lavoce.info.
2012b May 21. Flussi bloccati. www.lavoce.info.
Barbagli, M.
2007 I rapporto sugli immigrati in Italia. Ministero dell’Interno, Rome.
Battu, H. et al.
2011 Job contact networks and the ethnic minorities. Labour Economics, 18(1): 48 – 56.
60 The absence of such a policy – a fairly unique feature for an advanced economy such as the Italian
one – is often politically justified with the unfounded prejudice that Italy is structurally a ‚brain
exporter‘ and a ‚brawn importer‘. On the contrary, one could argue that making the country more
attractive for foreign talents would also increase its ability to retain its own native talents, through
the complementarities and the higher economic growth such a policy could induce (Boeri, Brücker,
Doquier, and Rapoport, 2012).