Migrant workers found mainly in low-skilled occupations

Giaccone, Mario

Overview

Article

Migrant workers found mainly in low-skilled occupations

Published: 22 March 2009

The report Non-nationals in the Italian labour market (in Italian, 2.2Mb PDF) [1] – published by the National Institute for Statistics (Istituto Nazionale di Statistica, Istat [2]) – summarises the findings regarding the living and working conditions of the non-national population according to various surveys carried out in the past decade. Registered non-nationals account for almost three million persons in Italy, according to 2006 data, and their number overcompensates for the demographic decline of nationals. Furthermore, a 2008 report on migration (in Italian, 370Kb PDF) [3] published by the Italian charity organisation Caritas estimates that about 500,000 undeclared non-nationals are living in Italy.[1] http://www.istat.it/dati/catalogo/20090109_00/stranieri_nel_mercato_lavoro.pdf[2] http://www.istat.it[3] http://www.caritasroma.it/Comunicazione/Pubblicazioni/DossierImmigrazione.aspx

Non-national workers now represent 6% of the labour force in Italy and generally fill low-skilled jobs, despite the fact that they show educational levels comparable to those of Italian citizens. In particular, they have limited access to qualified jobs because the lack of family support and the strict requirements regarding work permits curtail the time available to search for better-qualified positions. Migrant workers tend to be concentrated in certain sectors and occupations.

The report Non-nationals in the Italian labour market (in Italian, 2.2Mb PDF) – published by the National Institute for Statistics (Istituto Nazionale di Statistica, Istat) – summarises the findings regarding the living and working conditions of the non-national population according to various surveys carried out in the past decade. Registered non-nationals account for almost three million persons in Italy, according to 2006 data, and their number overcompensates for the demographic decline of nationals. Furthermore, a 2008 report on migration (in Italian, 370Kb PDF) published by the Italian charity organisation Caritas estimates that about 500,000 undeclared non-nationals are living in Italy.

Proportion of workforce

Migrant workers account for 5.9% of the total regular workforce in Italy; however, they represent 6.8% of all employees (Table 1). Overall, 85% of migrant workers are employees and this proportion increases to 87.7% among women; some 72.9% of national workers are employees. There is a higher share of temporary employees among non-nationals (13.2%) than nationals (9.4%). Furthermore, non-national women work part time more frequently than Italian women (39% and 25.7% respectively), while the gap among men is much narrower in this regard (5.7% and 4.7% respectively).

**Table 1: Employed persons, by nationality and employment status, 2006 (%)**
	Non-nationals			Nationals			Non-nationals as a proportion of total labour force
	Men	Women	Total	Men	Women	Total	Men	Women	Total
Employees	83.3	87.7	85.0	68.8	79.1	72.9	7.2	6.2	6.8
- permanent	71.9	71.5	71.7	61.2	66.8	63.5	7.0	6.0	6.6
- temporary	11.4	16.2	13.2	7.6	12.3	9.4	8.8	7.3	8.0
Self-employed	16.7	12.3	15.0	31.2	20.9	27.1	3.3	3.4	3.3
Part-time	5.7	39.0	18.3	4.7	25.7	13	7.2	8.3	8.1
Total							6.0	5.7	5.9

Source: Istat, 2009

Influence of sector and company size

Migrant workers are mainly employed in small companies: 52.3% of them work in companies with fewer than 10 employees (compared with 27.6% of nationals) whereas only 16.9% of non-nationals (compared with 38.7% of nationals) work in companies with more than 50 employees.

Moreover, they experience significant horizontal segregation. Non-national men are concentrated in the economic sectors of manufacturing (29.2%) and construction (27.5%); they account for 12.8% of total male employment in the latter sector (Table 2). Meanwhile, non-national women are predominantly found in the services sector (82.7%), especially in activities of households (41%) – where they account for 32.1% of total female employment.

**Table 2: Employed persons, by nationality and sector, 2006 (%)**
	Non-nationals			Nationals			Non-nationals as a proportion of total labour force
	Men	Women	Total	Men	Women	Total	Men	Women	Total
Agriculture	4.9	2.2	3.9	4.9	3.4	4.3	6.1	3.7	5.3
Manufacturing	29.2	14.7	23.7	25.7	15.7	21.8	6.8	5.3	6.4
Construction	27.5	0.4	17.2	12.0	1.1	7.7	12.8	2.4	12.2
Services	38.4	82.7	55.2	57.5	79.7	66.2	4.1	5.9	4.9
- of which: Wholesale and retail trade	10.8	7.6	9.6	15.5	16.0	15.7	4.2	2.8	3.7
- of which: Hotels and restaurants	7.3	11.7	9.0	3.9	5.7	4.6	10.8	10.9	10.9
- of which: Activities of households	5.1	41.0	18.7	1.0	5.2	2.7	23.6	32.1	30.3
Total							6.0	5.7	5.9

Source: Istat, 2009

Qualification levels

Horizontal segregation is combined with a strong concentration in low-skilled jobs: three out of four migrant workers are employed in low-skilled jobs notwithstanding the fact that their educational qualifications are close to those of Italian nationals. Overskilling is therefore higher among non-nationals (36.9%) than nationals (16.1%) (Table 3). More specifically, it is almost stable across the age groups of non-nationals, whereas overskilling declines with age among nationals – from 28.9% among the youngest Italian workers to 6.3% among the oldest. Thus, being overqualified for the job primarily affects those entering the labour market.

**Table 3: Overskilled workers, by gender, age and nationality, 2006 (%)**
	Non-nationals	Nationals
Men	31.4	15.7
Women	46.0	16.8

15–24 years	23.5	28.9
25–34 years	39.9	25.3
35–44 years	37.0	14.8
45–54 years	38.5	10.1
55 years +	33.2	6.3
Total	36.9	16.1

Source: Istat, 2009

Low-skilled occupations

A logistic regression analysis was carried out on the probability of non-nationals holding a low-skilled occupation (plant and machine operators and assemblers or craft and related trades workers) compared with a medium to high-skilled one (ranging from skilled agricultural and fishery workers to legislators, senior officials and managers), following the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO). This analysis shows that the probability of having a low-skilled job is 3.4 times higher for non-nationals than for nationals, and increases to a factor of 7.6 among migrant women (Table 4). Only educational levels show a stronger impact: low-qualified workers are 4.1 times more likely than higher qualified workers to have a low-skilled job. Again, this is especially the case for low-qualified women (6.6 times).

Non-national workers tend to be more likely than nationals to accept low-skilled jobs because of the strict requirements concerning their work permits and the lack of any family support for a longer job search for a better skilled occupation; this problem is particularly common among women.

**Table 4: Probability of having a low-skilled occupation, by gender and various sociodemographic characteristics (ratios)**
	Men	Women	Total
Non-national compared with national	2.3	7.6	3.4
North compared with Centre-South	0.9	0.9*	0.9
15–34 years compared with 35–54 years	1.0*	0.8	0.9
Lower secondary education at most compared with upper secondary education or more	3.3	6.6	4.1
Started work in 1996–2006 compared with before 1996	1.3	1.2	1.3
Men compared with women			1.3

Note: * insignificant.

Source: Istat, 2009

Commentary

Migration is a topical issue in the Italian labour market debate; the Istat report shows that migrant workers have filled the less qualified jobs left free by nationals due to the country’s demographic decline. The working conditions of non-nationals highlight the main features of the Italian labour market, which is characterised by informal recruitment networks with significant scope for undeclared work (IT0706039I) and overskilling.

Unlike national workers, non-nationals report poor opportunities for improving their occupational status by advancing to more qualified jobs through labour market transitions, thus perpetuating their concentration in low-skilled jobs in particular sectors (see also IT0701039Q). Furthermore, as the Istat report states, immigration is oriented to the least qualified jobs with low added value, contributing to the apparent paradox of a growing number of occupations with poor productivity performance, as discussed by Garibaldi (2005) (in Italian).

Mario Giaccone, CESOS

Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.

Eurofound (2009), Migrant workers found mainly in low-skilled occupations, article.