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Valuing diversity: guidance for labour market integration of migrants

that responds to their skills needs. To assist, public authorities require good
information about the needs of firms; they also need to provide the necessary
information and guidance to enterprises to ease the process of hiring immigrants
and lower the procedural costs.
The costs and resources necessary for career development activities,
including guidance for immigrants, could be shared between employers, the state
and other stakeholders (such as civil associations). Sharing responsibilities for
funding is a principle encouraged by European strategies on lifelong learning and
can also be applied to the financing of services that support the quality and
efficiency of learning. To make resource sharing attractive to employers, they
need to understand that quality information and developing immigrant CMS can
help increase the productivity of workers and firms and reduce procedural and
hiring costs. Such benefits should be documented and communicated in a
relevant and understandable way.
Trade unions can play a fundamental role by helping identify the career
development needs of migrant workers. They can develop guidance services
which support immigrants in obtaining information about conditions to access the
labour market, recognising their qualifications, validating their skills and finding
jobs with adequate working conditions. They can promote the integration of
arriving workers in the host country’s professional networks. Unions can also
raise the awareness of public authorities and employers of immigrant worker
needs and play a role in advocating their equal rights in access to work, learning
and validation, alongside their national peers.

8.1.3. European tools to make skills and qualifications visible
Integrating the common European tools in the guidance services and career
support provided to migrants will increase their possibilities of career
development and mobility. The European and national qualification frameworks
could support recognition of qualifications acquired in the country of origin or
elsewhere. A website or database, or similar tools that show how certificates from
different countries relate to national qualifications levels, can ease the work of
guidance services and inform people interested in moving to Europe. Validation
procedures supported by targeted guidance and leading to qualifications that are
included in national and the European qualification frameworks would also help
immigrants to access training and job opportunities across Europe.
Increased mobility among highly qualified third country immigrants in Europe
contributes to successful transposition of the blue card initiative to national
legislation and directly improves European labour market matching. The web
portal Ploteus, the EURES network and Europass should also be used in career

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