Eve here. One reason immigrants have won bad names, particularly the officially sponsored refugee initiatives such as Germany and other EU members who accept a large number of sils in 2015 and 2016, are the plan’s laloc (including basic temporary housing) that are employed in new countries and do not believe they are otherwise integrated. It should be noted that countries like Germany accept the proposals that migrants need to compensate for sublevel fertility rates. Syrians in particular have become a potentially desirable group due to the large caliber of Syria’s public education.
This article discusses the nuts and bolts totals for refugee integration. Contrary to the common practice of trying to get new entrants to hire them before providing language and vocational training, it is better to guide refugees into a work environment and provide parallel instruction. This makes sense. If you’ve ever tried to learn a language, if you expose a lot of daily exposures (even if you still have a grasp of much of what’s being said), speed is capable. The second benefit of having refugees in employers is that they acquire industry-specific vocabulary early. And creating personal connections is a huge plus for setting yourself up in a strange country.
Important factoids are in the heading. This approach is not expensive.
Giovanni Aviati, associate professor at the University of Sociology of Brescia. Erich Battistin, a faculty member at the Maryland Center for Population Studies and a professor at the University of Maryland. Paola Monty, research coordinator. Rodolfo Directenti Foundation. Paolo Pinotti, dean of the Faculty, professor of economics in the Department of Social Sciences, and chairman of the University of Bocconi. coordinator. Rodolfo Directenti Foundation. Originally published on Voxeu
The number of people fleeing war and persecution around the world has almost tripled since the early 2010s, challenging European policymakers to reintegrate the rapid integration of asylum seekers into the labour market. This column evaluates Italian pilot programs and provides early and personalized labor market support for asylum seekers. Even in resource-constrained settings, early targeting support increased employment by 30%, improved employment quality, improved language ability, and encouraged greater social integration with the local community.
Of the growing political pressures of European policymakers considering immigration policies and arriving across the Mediterranean, one of the most pressing questions is how to reorganize asylum seekers’ ability to quickly integrate into the labour market. The challenges are not new, but there are scholars. Since the early 2010s, the number of people around the world who have fled war and persecution and fled persecution has almost tripled from 11 million to 36 million. All across Europe, the asylum system is widely seen as too late, detached from economic realities, and inadequately equipped to help newcomers move towards employment. Finding ways to improve the integration of asylum seekers in new countries can reduce global tensions over this vulnerable population.
Growing consensus demonstrates access to the early labor market as a key component of successful integration (e.g. Fasani etal. 2018). Before placing an asylum seeker in a long term language or occupational co-levi, quickly tracking jobs with targeted support before being allowed to work can prevent long-term inactivity that provides skills and motivation (Schuettler and Caron 2020). The delays caused by the asylum procedures and bureaucratic hurdles to obtain work permits are the independence and social inclusion of the bon economy (Fasani etal. 2020). Therefore, reducing the “waiting period” and providing employment support services early can have significant benefits for both individuals and the host community.
Being one of the EU’s main entry points has been an outlier for Italy for timely support. Its asylum system remains fragmented and relies heavily on emergency accommodations (so-called CAS centres), with offers offerings offering little or no preparation for work. Asylum seekers have legal influence on working after 60 SEYs, but have received FEMPW’s apeive easing support in finding employment. As a result, many people spend years on limbo. Legally, it is practical for integration into the labor market.
Forwork Pilot has stepped into the vacuum of this policy (Abbiati etal. 2025). When implemented in northern Italy between 2018 and 2021, the core ideas are simple. It provides early-raised labor market support for asylum seekers, even before refugee statuses are formally collected.
What sets the Forwork Pilot apart is not just the early intervention model, but the implementation of Butus in one of the first countries where such initiatives are rare and urgently needed. Most of what we know about refugee integration comes from Northern Europe and focuses on resurrected refugees (for example, for a review of evidence from Sweden and Denmark, Irastorza 2016 and Foged etal. 2022, respectively). In contrast, forwork tested whether entry point countries could begin buff integrated capacity from the start, providing support before refugee status was recognized.
Forwork provided a specific model for aggressive labor market policies tailored to educational training and passive support, tailored to one size fits the specific needs of refugees. It was designed to assess whether such a model is timely and effective.
Early Intelion Experiments
The pilot was launched in the Piedmont region of Italy and was born from an ambitious alliance between public institutions, NGOs and academic diets. 1 Pilot targeted a critical stage in the asylum process. This is when most asylum seekers in the country are nothing more than food or shelter as soon as they arrive. Services are minimal and employment support is focused on residents of CAS centres that are virtually nonexistent.
Participants were provided with a coordinated bundle of services, including job guidance, professional guidance, language, civic education, and paid internships with Pittle employers. The intervention began with a one-on-one session with a job mentor who helped assess each asylum seeker’s skills and previous work experience using an EU skill profile tool for third country citizens. Together, mentors and minds are created to suit participants’ aspirations and professional backgrounds, and tailored to personalized plans. The mentors remained a steady point of contact, providing guidance, encouragement and helping them navigate the Italian labor market.
The program design allows for the evaluation of gold standards. CAS centers are randomly assigned to treatment and control groups, allowing for strict measurement of the impact of Forwork. A total of 622 asylum seekers participated, with two-thirds (409) being accepted. Results were anticipated using management data by two dedicated research drivers before and after the intervention.
Benefits: Employment, language ability, trust
A recent working paper (Abbiati etal. 2025) shows that subsidies participants are more likely to win formal employment and stable contracts, and that they are profitable for those who participated in subsidized internships. Evacuation from Covid-19 during the research Ponar, one-to-one mentoring suggests resilience not only in ideal conditions but also in other constrained or urgent contexts.
Over an 18-month follow-up period, pilots increased employment by 30%. Figure 1 shows that participants’ employment rates were 10 percentage points higher than the control group (43% vs. 33%), with a relative 30% increase. Among men, employment rose 15 points. Among women that are usually difficult to reach with such labor market interventions, employment increased by 8-10 points, almost doubled the baseline rate. Women, African citizens, and individuals with no prior work experience were particularly likely to be involved in and benefited in teaching.
Figure 1. Impact of job guidance on employment
The quality of employment has also improved. Participants reported higher monthly revenues (30% increase compared to control group) than likely to hold regular or permanent contracts. Paid internships offered to approximately 20% of participants appeared to play a catalytic role, easing the transition from job searches to regular employment. Importantly, these benefits reflect not only the transition from informal work to formal work, but also the true increase in employment. With the absence of forwork, data shows that over 8% of asylum seekers in the target population are outside of exploitation and labor law protections. This is an impressive figure, especially considering that little is known about the extent to which newly arrived immigrants are absorbed into the informal labor market.
There’s more to it. Beyond pay, the benefits of forwork have been extended. As shown in Figure 2, language ability rose 15-20 percentage points between comprehension, reading, and speaking. Participants also reported greater trust in Isal and more frequent social interactions with local people, as shown in Figure 3. All theaters are signs that early labor market inclusion can also promote social integration in new communities.
Figure 2 Effects of job mentoring on language ability
Figure 3 Effects of job mentoring on social integration
a) People you trust
b) Meet people
Cost and Scalability
One of the greatest strengths of Forwork was its cost-effectiveness. The average cost per participant was just over 3,000 euros. This is a figure in line with the standard Italian labor market program for the unemployed. Almost 80% of that spending went directly to the services and staff, but only 6% covered the internship. In other words, forwork did not require new infrastructure or extraordinary infusions of public funds into subsidized employment. He trained job mentors trained to work with asylum seekers using existing local employment centres. This model is practical, replicable and scalable in other countries as long as there is political will and minimal institutional adjustment.
Whatmakers should know: “Initial” issues
For policymakers looking to reduce the association’s financial and social costs, the case of early labor market integration is forced. The Forwork Pilot stands out as one of the few randomized assessments of refugee labor market interventions in Europe. It’s not a silver bullet, but it offers a practical, evidence-based model to do better with modest means. The core lessons are simple, but powerful. Initial target support can dramatically improve employment outcomes for asylum seekers, even in resource-constrained settings.
This challenges the status quo in many EU countries where integrated services are differently delayed after refugee status has been formally granted. But these real costs are behind. Long-term inactivity erodes skills, weakens motivation and promotes recognition of dependence. What’s worse, it could deprive the local economy of much needed labor, especially in sectors facing sustained shortages. Delays in consolidation also increase the risk of informal employment and in submission cases, it results in involvement in criminal activity. You are an achievement, cultivate public responsiveness against exile pollise and foster political backlash.
We learned that consequences have committed inevitable. With its modest investment and abundant design, Relativley is able to accelerate the benefits of integration and concrete delivery for both asylum seekers and host communities. Better service doesn’t need to attract more arrnrivals. They may improve the strengths of those who already exist and help them become self-scientific faster. And they may offer substantial alternatives to more expensive and less effective approaches, such as long-term housing subsidies (Tamin etal. 2025).
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