International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Improving Access to Labour market Information for migrants and employers
92
plan of action regarding immigration in the next three years, the document also
establishes the general criteria for entry flows which should constitute the basis for
defining the annual “Flows Decrees”. It is worth noting that the last “Three-year
Planning Document” approved concerned the period 2004–2006. 32 These delays
clearly create additional uncertainty for the employers, who are unable to predict the
willingness of the government to allow new entries of foreign workers in the next
few years and who can not, as a consequence, make any medium-term recruitment
plans.
When the “Flows Decree” is approved and becomes effective, potential employers
can start applying to hire immigrant workers until the number established by the
quota is reached. According to the law, these immigrant workers should be recruited
from abroad and should not be already residing in the country. When applying for
an immigrant employee within the quota system, the employer can either request a
specific individual (in Italian: “chiamata nominativa”) or hire the first person in the
lists of job-seekers that are compiled by Italian embassies and consulates in origin
countries.
While the quota system is meant to regulate new entries of foreign workers in the
Italian labour market, we will explain below that the way this system works in
practice – although agents formally abide by its legal rules – leads to fairly different
outcomes.
The rules which regulate the access of non-EU27 citizens to the Italian labour
market vary depending on the type of work (seasonal vs. non-seasonal; subordinate
employment vs. self-employment) and depending on whether workers are residing
abroad or already legally residing in Italy. 33 We summarize these rules in the
following table. 34
32 The “2007–2009 Planning Document” was elaborated by the centre-left Prodi government and never
approved as final because of the early termination of that legislature.
33 Apart from the case of general amnesties, undocumented immigrants who are unlawfully residing
in Italy are considered as resident abroad. In other words, there is no such thing as a permanent
mechanism which, under certain conditions, allows the undocumented immigrant who has found
an employer willing to legally hire him or her to obtain legal residence status (that is, “case by case”
regularizations as those carried out in other EU Member States).
34 See EMN Italy (2010) for further details.