International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Low-skilled migration candidates have fewer information tools at their disposal
compared with their more skilled counterparts. Thus, they may lack digital literacy
or other skills to use the digital media to connect with prospective employers abroad.
On the other hand, they are generally less sought after by big firms, compared with
the highly skilled, and their networks are not as broad as those of more qualified
migrants. As a general rule, low-skilled migrants mostly rely on personal and social
co-ethnic networks (diaspora) to find employment abroad. If, on the one hand, the
use of informal, ethnic networks has the advantage of offsetting the comparative
information and language deficiencies of the low-skilled, generally without
involving fees, on the other hand this practice entails high risks of creating and
replicating ethnic segmentation of the labour market. The use of ethnic networks for
international employment match generally has the effect of clustering workers from
each migrant group in specific occupations in their country of destination, regardless
of their actual skills and competences, thus hampering the possibilities of professional
mobility for those migrants, also as a result of the slower acquisition of countryspecific
skills. Analysis of the occupational progress and earning attainments of
migrants in Germany as compared with the native population (Constant and Massey,
2005) has identified a high degree of initial occupational segmentation for migrants,
which is presumably driven by their recourse to ethnic networks when looking for
employment opportunities. This results in little job mobility and a widening of the
status gap between Germans and immigrants over time. From the employers’ point
of view, hiring through ethnic networks might not be the most cost-efficient strategy
in terms of productivity outcomes, since it implies a recruitment process not entirely
based on the candidates’ competences.
When personal and ethnic networks and migration chains are not sufficient for
prospective low-skilled migrants to find employment abroad, they generally have
recourse to the services of private intermediation agencies, as is notably the case
for seasonal employment abroad. In Poland, results of studies carried out among
seasonal workers from Ukraine demonstrated that most of them found their job
through friends’ recommendations (62%) and via intermediaries (21%), who very
rarely have registered job agency activities – the so-called “drivers” (Chapter 8).
Ukrainians in Poland are largely employed in the agricultural and horticultural
sectors, and Ukrainian women in care occupations in private households.
Vietnamese, who are established in big cities, are mainly found working in the
retail sector (textiles). There is evidence that the prominence of informal matching
channels is leading to the establishment of immigrant clusters in the country,
both from a geographical and from an occupational perspective. The dominant
pattern of informal channels for employment matching in Poland is reported to be
a consequence of the absence of public or publicly supported non-profit initiatives
to facilitate the interaction between labour demand from Polish firms and migrant
labour supply.
NGOs and charitable organizations established in both the countries of origin and
destination of migrants may also act as facilitators of international employment
matching for the low- and medium-skilled. This pattern is observed in Italy,
eXecutIve summAry – SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
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