Toolkit and Advocacy paper to promote the migrants’ labour inclusion  – LIME Project

Migration and integration of non-European Union citizens (third country nationals) is a crucial issue of the European Union, but it is also a great resource, especially for the labour market. However, in 2019, the employment rate of Third Country Nationals (TCN) declined to 60%, some 13,8 points below the average for national citizens, with women and refuges struggling more. And even when they have a job, TCNs often work below their qualification and skills. Yet, the labour market integration of TCNs is a key element for their effective integration in European societies.

This idea is the spirit of the LIME project – a project ran by ALDA and several partners from France, Italy and Spain, which aims to promote and foster the swift integration of third country nationals into the labour market.

In order to do so, the project designed and developed a new approach: the Migrants Economic Integration Cluster (MEIC) approach. It aims to strengthen the cooperation and mobilisation of employers and social and economic partners through the activation of “cluster networks” at the local level, meaning a local multi-stakeholders network enabling to manage the multidimensional process of migrants’ integration.

Promote and foster the swift integration of third country nationals into the labour market

Recently, the project has released two useful papers to make this approach and the project’s results accessible and replicable in other local contexts:

– “A toolkit for designing cluster interventions”. This instructive document, and more especially the section 3 “How to activate and consolidate the MEIC Approach: some operational suggestions”, will give you the basics of this new methodology: how to engage institutional and private stakeholders, how to manage the cluster to respond to specific needs, how to ensure the long term sustainability in the context, and much more!

– An advocacy paper: “Implement in cluster: a new form of governance to empower social capital of local networks for Third Country Nationals’ labour inclusion.” This second document addresses several recommendations from the LIME project in order to foster the migrants’ labour inclusion, such as promoting the involvement of beneficiaries in the co-design of labour inclusion programs at the local level, recognizing the qualification recognition procedures for third country nationals, etc. You can read it in English, Italian and Spanish

Would you like to know more about the LIME project? Check the website