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Relaunching labour-market integration for migrants: What can we learn from successful local experiences?

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Abstract

Labour policy can be considered the most crucial means with which to promote the effective integration of migrants. In this policy field, best practices circulate widely among policymakers, above all at the local level, to devise solutions to facilitate the integration of migrants. However, best practices tend to fail when they are transferred to other countries. In the light of the policy analysis literature on the transfer of best practices, the paper discusses three cases of local practices. It describes the network of actors, and it focuses on the reasons for the success of labour-integration policies for migrants during the implementation phase at the local level. The paper tests the following dimensions: the centrality of the users/migrants; the complexity and density of the networks of actors; and the mechanisms triggered. The hypothesis is that the activation of social mechanisms within an actors’ network can achieve a higher level of migrant integration in countries affected by strong migratory flows, and direct more attention to the needs of end-users and their relationship with stakeholders at the local level. The paper analyses the case studies in order to detect the mechanisms that may positively affect implementation of labour policy. Moreover, it is important to determine whether local actors can play a positive role in increasing the effectiveness of migrants’ integration into the labour market. An empirical analysis of the three cases is needed to identify the main success factors and to highlight the main findings of the empirical research.

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Notes

  1. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic, and Social Committee, and the Committee of Regions, Action plan on Integration, and Inclusion 2021-2027, COM (2020) 758 final at https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/legal-migration/integration

  2. European Agenda for the Integration of Third-Country nationals, http://eur-ex.europa.eu/legalcontent/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52011DC0455&from=en, p.2

  3. https://www.mipex.eu/

  4. The interviews were conducted between October 2013 and November 2017, and they involved lawyers, non-governmental organizations, public officials, policy makers that were experts in immigration programmes and/or directly participated in the three cases. The list of interviews is included in appendix.

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Interviews

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    Acknowledgements

    This work was supported by ISMU Foundation and Knowledge for Integration Governance - King project funded by European Commission Directorate – General Home Affairs under the Action HOME/2012- 2013/EIFX/CA/CFP/4000004268.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Universitas Mercatorum, Rome, Italy

      Paola Coletti

    2. Department of Social and Political Sciences, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy

      Nicola Pasini

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    Appendix

    Appendix

    Figs. 1, 2, 3, Table 1

    Fig. 1
    figure 1

    Actors’ network –Case Entrepreneurs without Borders

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    Fig. 2
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    Actors’ network—Case CinaMi

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    Fig. 3
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    Actors’ network—case One-Stop Shop in Lisbon

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    Table 1 Description of networks of the case studies
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    Coletti, P., Pasini, N. Relaunching labour-market integration for migrants: What can we learn from successful local experiences?. Int. Migration & Integration 24, 67–90 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-022-00933-6

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