MIGRASCOPE
Extending the Scope of Labour Market Integration of Immigrants

In January 2017, the new EU-funded project MIGRASCOPE was launched. The project’s objective is to foster the integration of migrants into the labor market. In cooperation with six project partners, the ZAK will lay Europe wide foundations to facilitate migrants’ access to employment until the end of 2018.

Different cultural backgrounds often entail different perceptions of the work environment. This can lead to misunderstandings between migrants and employers, which in turn can impede the integration into the work process. How can the awareness of culturally different perceptions be raised? How can migrants be integrated successfully into the labor market? These questions increasingly gain in importance and present new challenges for our society.

The project’s aim, therefore, is to support migrants and employers in this challenge. In order to reach this aim, the project on the one hand wants to implement new good practices of integration at the workplace through the method of transnational work-shadowing among employers. On the other hand, the project aims to build the capacities of both migrants and employers. Whereas the migrants’ capacities are to be built through better management of their expectations, the identification of expectations and disappointments as well as the deconstruction of stereotypes are to contribute to the capacity building of employers. The project also wants to identify and empower successful migrant entrepreneurs. Moreover, interactive e-tools are developed to increase the access to work for migrants.

The ZAK is conducting the research for the identification of expectations and disappointments among migrants and employers. Concepts for workshops and seminars, which will be carried out in cooperation with project partners, will be based on the results of this research.

The project is led by the Institute of Baltic Studies (IBS) in Estonia. Beside the IBS and the ZAK, the organization SwIdeas AB in Sweden, the foundation Inclusive Works in the Netherlands, the Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) in Lithuania, The Peace Institute (TPI) in Slovenia and The Foundation Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) in Poland are involved in the project.

News

Launch of the project in Tartu

Experts from the project MIGRASCOPE came together in Tartu, Estonia on February 13 and 14, 2017. The project coordinator Institute of Baltic Studies invited representatives of the project partners from the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Slovenia and Sweden to Estonia’s second largest city to plan the project’s first steps. Furthermore, the project partners met to exchange on differences and similarities regarding the labor market situation in the respective partner country. The data, which will be collected and evaluated by each of the partner countries, are the first steps to develop Europe wide optimized training programs and information leaflets.