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Valuing diversity: guidance for labour market integration of migrants

(b) improving the employability of the lower-qualified tier of unemployed, in
which immigrants will also be a higher risk group, with specific problems
relating to cultural integration and discrimination.

Cedefop’s findings are in line with the European Commission analysis
supporting country-specific recommendations, according to which some of these
practices are very generalist. Unlike integration measures, generalist policies in
education and employment tend to have stable funding. Although they normally
have some measures to account for risk factors, such as the impact of parent
unemployment or poverty, they seldom account for specific issues related to
cultural diversity. For example, it is not common that a general programme to
improve the employability of lower-qualified or inactive people will address
immigrant women issues. The degree of cultural adaptability of the practices
varies widely with the level of multicultural training/awareness of the vocational
teachers/trainers and counsellors.
Nevertheless, there are important cases of specialised, stable practices to
support immigrant integration in the labour market through guidance
methodologies within the public sector. One example is the Integration through
qualification network (IQ network) in Germany, which supports 16 regional
networks (such as the one in the Berlin case, or NOBI) bringing together labour
market stakeholders to promote the occupational integration of migrants.
Non-governmental organisations play an important role in innovating and
networking. Many of the most interesting practices are integrated in NGO
initiatives, which tend to use more innovative and creative methodologies than
institutionalised environments. Such practices are generally inserted in a network
in which public authorities, employers, schools and VET organisations
participate, by cooperating with the managing NGO (through funding, needs
assessment, supplying expertise). The examples are diverse: project Atana (the
Netherlands) selects, counsels and coaches citizens of immigrant background to
assume managerial and directive roles, making direct usage of the directive
functions in the networks of non-profit organisations; in Spain, the project
‘orientación formativa y laboral’ from the non-profit organisation AMIC connected
to the UGT labour union aims at aiding immigrant access to training and
employment via targeted CMS development, information about training options,
language training and by supporting the equivalence of qualifications.
Project-based practices are frequently small in scale, short-lived and not fully
mainstreamed. One of the fundamental issues of integration practices in general
is that most do not exceed two to three years in duration, with relatively low
budgets. The consequence is that the practices reach a very small proportion of
the immigrant population and have low probabilities of being reproduced. The

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