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Valuing diversity: guidance for labour market integration of migrants

qualified labour. Yet the inflow of citizens from third countries to the EU has a
strong potential for the renewal of the workforce, due to its younger age structure
when compared to the European population.
The decline in European birth rates in recent decades alongside the
progressive retirement of a highly qualified workforce during the current decade,
suggest a low replacement rate for qualified labour. Cedefop research further
forecasts that medium-term skills shortages will occur in highly skilled
occupations, due to acceleration in the demand for highly skilled professionals.
The current challenge in respect of immigrant integration is multiple.
Admission of new immigrants needs to be geared to the growth needs of
countries with demand for highly qualified labour. For this to have the proposed
effect on the economy, effective recognition of qualifications mechanisms is
needed to minimise the impact of mismatch from low skills visibility.
The immigrant workforce will also require quality information on the labour
market, learning options, local regulations and systems. Receiving countries
must also ensure that arriving immigrants develop key competences to allow
successful engagement in learning and work. Initial integration steps should
guide the newly arrived towards an up-skilling, context-aware and self-aware
career path, permitting exploration of both the arriving individuals’ potential and of
the opportunities presented to them.
It is also fundamental that national states address social exclusion
phenomena among resident immigrant communities, combating youth
disengagement from education and training, female exclusion from the labour
market and the risk of poverty. A continuous and consistent effort in this direction
will strongly contribute to the achievement of targets in the EU 2020 growth
agenda.
Immigrant inclusion is especially important for the countries to which most of
the current migrant inflow from third countries is directed: Belgium, Germany,
Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Austria, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom
are the most representative. Some of these countries face a particularly strong
challenge, as they only started to develop comprehensive integration systems
recently, under the pressure of a new and accelerated growth of migrant intake:
this is the case in Greece, Spain and Italy.
Guidance services, in this context, are important for three main reasons:
(a) easing the tensions of inclusion, especially in a transitional period of crisis
with high unemployment rates, such as the present;
(b) supporting a sustained growth strategy, by responding to skills gaps;
(c) allowing the full development of immigrants as highly valuable
workers/entrepreneurs and active citizens.

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