Work Placement as Social Integration

IMMIGRANT WORKERS AND COOPERATIVE ENTERPRISES

Cooperative enterprises can play a decisive role in transforming work placement into social integration, especially in the possibility of involving the immigrant workforce in a more active and qualified way.
This is particularly important in a labor market in which the problem of both the recognition of professionalism and the training of this workforce is central.
A research conducted by the Italian Institute of Cooperative Studies “Luigi Luzzatti” provides a national picture of the presence of non-EU workers in the cooperative world. Starting from an examination of the statistical sources available on this presence, we propose a detailed analysis of some experiences gained in the cooperative enterprises of central and northern Italy in which this presence was recorded in a particularly significant way. This analysis is accompanied by a critical evaluation in terms of “good practices” of reproducible intervention strategies which leads to a research-intervention project.