A decree adopted Monday evening plans to authorize 497,550 entries from 2026 to 2028 divided between non -seasonal and independent work, and seasonal work in the agricultural and tourist sectors.
The Italian ultra-conservative government has announced that it wanted to deliver nearly 500,000 new work visas to non-European nationals, an insufficient measure for an important union which called on Tuesday July 1 to a structural change in the face of the shortage of labor in the country.
A decree adopted Monday evening in the Council of Ministers plans to authorize 497,550 entries from 2026 to 2028 – including nearly 165,000 next year – divided between non -seasonal and independent work, and seasonal work in the agricultural and tourism sectors.
450,000 permits issued between 2023 and 2025
The government of Giorgia Meloni had already issued 450,000 permits between 2023 and 2025, which brought the total to nearly a million, in very high increase after 70,000 in 2021 and 75,700 in 2022. Since its election in 2022, the head of the Frajeli far -right party of Italia (FDI), has made the fight against clandestine immigration one of its priorities.
But his government seeks to multiply the means of legal immigration for non-European workers in order to remedy the shortage of labor in an aging country and confronted with a fall in the birth rate.
The main agricultural union, Coldiretti, praised the government’s decision as a “Important not forward to guarantee the availability of workers in the fields and, therefore, food production”.
However, a high -responsible CGIL union – the oldest and most important in Italy – said on Tuesday that new quotas did not take into account migratory dynamics and labor needs.
Legal flaws
According to Maria Grazia Gabrielli, the number of requests is much lower than the available quotas, with the exception of domestic work. In 2023 and 2024, only 7.5% to 7.8% of quotas effectively led to a residence permit, she said in a statement, stressing their ineffectiveness.
Gabrielli has criticized the government’s policy consisting in giving priority to applicants from countries who lead media campaigns to discourage their nationals from illegally emigrating to Italy.
Italian policy relating to foreign workers is full of legal flaws, which take advantage of criminal organizations to exploit workers in an irregular situation.
