Regularisations and employment in Italy REGANE Assessment Report

This report presents the results from the collection of background information, interviews with experts and stakeholders conducted in Milan and Naples in May 2013, and qualitative semi-structured interviews with migrants in these two regions of Italy. Section one provides an overview of Italy’s relatively recent emergence as a major receiverof labour immigration, along with policy responses and outcomes and recent legislative changes. The succeeding section details the various regularisations and other forms of amnesty since 1990, along with estimates of changed stocks of irregular migrants over time,and for the first time estimation of Italy’s irregularity rate over the last decade. The third section provides in the first instance a summary of the more important literature concerning labour market outcomes of regularisations in Italy. This is followed by a synopsis of the results of the 20 interviews conducted with immigrants in Milan and Naples. Some broad patterns are identified, along with tabular presentation of some major variables concerning the responses. Four case studies are presented in some detail – each representing a fairly common pattern of interaction with the immigration legislative framework of Italy. The report concludes with some thoughts on the problematic of conducting large-scale surveys in Naples and Milan to establish the impact of regularisations on the labour market and on immigrants themselves