Mixed results for foreign workers in Italy. On the one hand, the employment rate decreased in 2011, while on the other the number of permanent contracts increased. According to the second annual report on the labor market of immigrants presented today by the Minister of Labor Elsa Fornero, by the Director General of Immigration and Integration Policies Natale Forlani and by the Undersecretary for Labor and Social Policies Maria Cecilia Guerra.
In 2011, out of all contracts entered into for immigrants, there were 18% of permanent contracts. For foreign workers from the EU the share of definitive contracts is equal to 22% of the total while for non-EU workers the percentage rises to 39%. The report also shows that the effective duration of contracts for foreign workers is longer than that of Italians: while 34% of terminated employment relationships involving Italians last less than a month, those with the same effective duration for non-EU citizens are 21% and for foreigners from the EU 27%.
An important difference can be observed by comparing Italian and foreign female workers: if only 17% of contacts signed by women from the Bel Paese are open-ended, for foreigners the percentage rises to 29% and to 48% for non-EU women. However, in 2011 foreign women presented a greater number of terminations of open-ended contracts than foreign men (43,8% against 32,7%).
Foreigners remain penalized at the level of pay. If among Italian workers 64% are placed in the intermediate salary class (between one thousand and 2 thousand euros per month), only 41% of EU foreigners (and 43% of non-EU) reach the same salary level. At the same time, only 27% of employed Italian employees work in the lower range (below one thousand euros) while for foreigners this is the most common salary level (55,9% for EU and non-EU foreigners).
Sectors of greatest demand for labor are agriculture (32,3% of the total), the construction (27,9%), theindustry strictly speaking (20,8%), ei personal services (16,1%) who, focusing only on non-EU citizens, collect more than 60% of the total. In the North, the demand is greater than in the Center and the South for this type of worker. Furthermore, it should be noted that in 2011 the demand for skilled labor exceeded that of the unskilled.
The location of Worker, especially for non-Europeans, reaches around 90% while for EU foreigners around 83% while the corresponding value for Italians is much lower and stands at around 40%. The second qualification for the number of employed people is that of Employee, but in this case the highest incidence for foreigners is reached by EU citizens (13,4%) compared to non-EU citizens (8,5%). The prevalence among foreigners is clear Own workers (approximately 69% of EU citizens and 79% of foreign workers from outside the EU) against a share among Italian self-employed workers of 59%. As for i Freelancers on the podium are Italians, with a value of around 22%, followed by European foreigners (13,2%) and non-EU foreigners, with a much lower value and equal to 5,2%.
It is interesting to note from the report that workers with Indian citizenship are mainly concentrated in the Agriculture sector (39,5% of the total) and Services (36,7%); Tunisians (29,3%), Senegalese (18%) and Moroccans (18,3%) are also present in the agricultural sector with significant percentage values; Filipinos (91,9%), Sinhalese (86,4%), Peruvians (84,7%), Ukrainians (77%) and Ecuadorians (75,5%) were mainly contracted in the Services sector; in Construction there is a significant presence of Egyptians (24,9%), Albanians (18,7%) and Tunisians (15%); Industry in the strict sense absorbs a considerable number of Chinese workers (33,5%).
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