One of the most difficult aspects in relation with the integration of newly arrived migrants and refugees in todays’ European societies is their integration in the labor market. Even though their integration on the labor market is the single most important element that will lead to their social inclusion.
This difficulty many times is based on the luck of information from both sides. Refugees and migrants do not know which jobs are available, which are the needs of the labor market, which skills are required, which is the relevant legislation etc. On the other hand many employers are not aware of the skills that the immigrants and refugees bring from their countries, are not aware if they can employ them in a legal way and are not able to valorize diversity in order to grow their enterprise.
The NGOs that are working with them have usually little connection with the labor market and few contacts with enterprises. In order to overcome this gap of information from both sides, it is very important to build the capacity and valorize the potential of intermediary organisations that stand between the enterprises and the society. These organisations include social partners, chambers of commerce, employment agencies, VET orgnanisations etc. Because of their nature, these organisations can take a leading role in connecting labor market with refugees and migrants.
Their role can start, as the Action Plan for the Integration of Third Country Nationals also suggest, from the identification of the prior skills of refugees and migrants and can continue with the provision of specialized vocational education and training, supporting of matches between the desired skills of the enterprises and the skills that the migrants and refugees already have, the provision of support related with legislation and bureaucracy etc. However, despite some examples of positive initiatives promoted by economic and social actors, nowadays, most of the intermediary organisations, especially in the countries of first arrival of refugees do not have the necessary capacity to support these processes as they are loosely connected with migrants, refugees and the civil society. This project is aiming to cover this gap by supporting the building of the capacity of intermediary organisations in order to support this process. This capacity building process should be based both on training and on practical implementation of the training outcomes, i.e. practical measures to support enterprises and refugees/ migrants.
According to the project philosophy, there is not an urgent need for the development of new tools and methods related with the integration of third country nationals to the labor market. The methods and tools exist and include the initiative “Employers together for Integration”, the Upskilling Pathways Council Recommendation, the EU Skills Profile for Third Country Nationals, the local legislation etc. What is lucking, something which is recognized also by the European Dialogue on Skills and Migration is the information on these initiatives and their wide mainstreaming in the EU societies. For this reason, there is an urgent need for capacity building and training actions that are going to be able to promote these initiatives to the projects’ target groups.
The aim of IMMIJOBS is to increase the labour market integration of newly arrived migrants in sustainable employment positions. This will be achieved through the sustainable involvement of intermediary organisations (chambers of commerce, trade unions, employers’ associations, employment agencies etc) in the process of linking refugee and migrant communities with the labor market. It is believed that the intermediary organisations are in a very crucial position in order to support this process in a sustainable way. Therefore, the long term effect of the project is the increased and sustainable involvement of intermediary organisations in supporting labour market integration for third country nationals, fact which will lead to an improvement of the labor market integration of the latter.
