Click day, how many foreign workers does Italy need?

The March 27 is click daythe day on which the procedures envisaged for the arrival in Italy of non-EU workers envisaged by the flow decree can be started with the Decree of the President of the Council of Ministers for transitional flow programming. The admissions established are 82,705 admissions, up from 69,700 last year.

What the flow decree says

Employers can enter the dedicated portal by identifying themselves with the Spid and enter requests according to their needs for non-EU workers. This procedure applies to the road haulage, tourism-hotel, construction, mechanical, telecommunications, food and shipbuilding sectors.

Coldiretti has indicated the quotas for seasonal work expected mainly in the countryside, as well as in the hotel and tourism sector: 44,000 units, against 42,000 last year, of which 1,500 reserved for new requests for multi-year seasonal clearance, «entrances which in fact allow the company in subsequent years not to be bound within the terms of publication in the Official Gazette of the Dpcm to have access to the authorisation”.

There is the reconfirmation of seasonal entry quotas reserved for trade associations: 22,000 units against 14,000 the year before. «The requests presented by the professional organizations of the employers, which will have priority over the generality of the requests, will be verified by the professional organizations themselves, which also undertake to supervise the conclusion of the worker recruitment procedure, effectively accelerating the entire process of the entry procedure.

There is the possibility for non-EU workers to be employed immediately after obtaining the permit and without waiting for the signing of the residence contract. The agricultural sector will have a flow mechanism: requests that are not accepted will be examined as a priority in the subsequent flow decrees, without having to resubmit the application.

How many workers are needed

In the weeks following the click day, a new flow decree could arrive for additional entries based on the number of rejected applications. Although quotas have increased since last year, requests for workers are expected to far outstrip available vacancies. In 2022 the applications had been for more than 200 thousand workers.

“In the countryside, with the arrival of spring, there is a need for at least one hundred thousand young people to fill the lack of manpower that hit the countryside hard last year with the significant loss of national agricultural crops”, said the president of Coldiretti Ettore Prandini.

Romano Magrini, labor and immigration manager of Coldiretti, explains that “in agriculture, only the employers’ associations will ask for about 50,000 employees”. This number is already higher than that foreseen for the sector and is more than double that of the entrances reserved for agricultural organizations.

There are even higher numbers. According to the dossier published in December 2021 by the Idos study center Italy would need 400,000 new immigrants to support the economic recovery and compensate for the demographic decline.

A research commissioned by Assindatcolf, the National Association of Domestic Work Employers and also created by the Idos Study and Research Centre, says that up to 23,000 non-EU workers a year would be needed to cover the family need for domestic care and assistance in Italy. There would be around 68,000 domestic cleaners and carers to be hired in the three-year period 2023-2025. This sector is not included in the flows decree.

Which sectors

In Italy, according to the Confederation of direct farmers, one out of four agricultural products is harvested by foreign workers. The Idos dossier says that 358,000 workers from 164 different countries are engaged in the fields and stables. They provide more than 30 percent of the total working days needed by the sector. Most of these workers come from Romania, Morocco, India and Albania.

«Above all», explains Coldiretti, «we are dealing with fixed-term employees who arrive from abroad and who cross the border every year for seasonal work and then return to their own country, often establishing long-lasting professional relationships as well as friendships with agricultural entrepreneurs. But the presence of foreigners at the helm of agricultural enterprises is also growing, with almost 17,000 owners of nationalities other than Italian».

– Migrants, three children and three women died of thirst on a boat and thrown into the sea

-Refugees, the first winners of scholarships from the university corridors arrive in Italy

-Stories of lone minor migrants: «The boat capsized, my friends are dead»