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The international migration – and recruitment- of health professionals has gained momentum in the last fifteen years, becoming a matter of international concern. Work-related issues – i.e. working conditions, integration and retention of foreign-educated health professionals - have emerged along with (old) issues of ethical recruitment. This paper focuses on the recruitment of foreign-educated nurses (FENs) and contributes to the current debate on approaches to international recruitment and labour market integration of health professionals by introducing the concept of 'sustainable recruitment', which binds together ethical recruitment and work-related issues. This study aims to investigate the ways these aspects actually or potentially shape current approaches of international recruitment. A qualitative approach is used to study the case of Finland, which is an emerging destination country of FNEs and that has started to recruit nurses both from within the European Union and in the Philippines. In particular the paper presents and discusses the results of an empirical investigation carried out in Finland in 2015 that was aimed at exploring whether and how private and public health care organizations and private recruitment agencies are responding to issues of 'sustainable recruitment' while recruiting FENs internationally.

Situated within the framework of the ILO's Decent Work Across Borders Project, this study is primarily intended to investigate the recruitment experiences and the working conditions of migrant workers in the health sector. In particular, this study explores the experiences of Filipino-born and Indian-born nurses in the United Kingdom (UK). The objective is to understand the intersections between the institutional framework, which has evolved across time in response to changes in the political and economic priorities, and the work experience of the Internationally Recruited Nurses (IRNs). The review of policy documentation and literature in the field is combined with interviews with 13 key informants who were identified among trade unions, professional unions, employers association, immigrant associations and governmental bodies. An on-line survey was also developed to hear from IRNs working in the UK; a total of 433 valid questionnaires were collected from March to June 2013. Information and data collected during the fieldwork indicate a positive relation between satisfaction about recruitment experiences, motivations and working conditions of nurses. Respondents hired directly by the NHS tend to report more positive assessments than other respondents and especially compared with the ones recruited by private agencies to work in care and nursing homes. The recruitment process is only one factor influencing IRNs' working conditions, however. Changes in the situation of IRNs must be interpreted within the wider leverage of working conditions of healthcare workforce stemming from the economic crisis and consequential cuts in NHS funding starting in 2008 as recent surveys in the UK and in Europe demonstrate. Concerns about losing the job are common among nurses in the UK. IRNs interviewed in our survey also reported concerns; only 1 in 10 of them considers that job security has increased over the years. Many also feel operating in increasing unsafe working conditions. Most of the respondents arrived in the UK before 2006 as the result of NHS expansion and have therefore been witnessing cuts in NHS funding and structural reforms of the whole public health sector started after that period. Overall, empirical evidence suggest that the easiest way for employers to deal with funding cuts in the public health sector has been reducing the personnel and intensifying work shifts and workloads. IRNs seem to be in a vulnerable position to such pressure. Changes in immigration rules, cuts in NHS funding and the progressive privatization of the health care system in the UK combine and shape employers' utilization of migrant health workers in ways that may increase risks of unequal treatment in the workplace. A substantial proportion of IRNs who participated in our survey reported lacking professional and career prospects, their professional identity not adequately recognized and valued by the manager and lacking cooperation and solidarity from colleagues in the team. These feelings correlate with what IRNs reported about equality issues in the workplace – i.e. unequal treatment and discrimination in the workplace driven by ethnic considerations. The consequences of such a situation are not limited to the working conditions of the IRNs but also extend to the quality of care as demonstrated by the correlation between disappointment reported by respondents about their working conditions and the quality of care they are able to provide to patients. Results of the fieldwork indicate a significant relation between the worsening of working conditions, experiences of ethnic discrimination and unequal treatment in the workplace. Empirical evidence also suggest that differences between IRNs in terms of working conditions significantly cut across issues of access to opportunities, equality and diversity management in the workplace. Finally, differences in working conditions reflect different IRNs' orientations towards the UK labour market. Namely, disappointment about working conditions combined with a general feeling of uncertainty about the future in the UK turned out to be an important factor in influencing the decision of many IRNs interviewed of leaving the UK.

The Cross-Regional Information System (CRIS) on the Reintegration of Migrants in their Countries of Origin is part of the Return Migration and Development Platform (RDP) hosted by the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence. ; Cette étude analyse le processus de réintégration socioprofessionnelle et économique des migrants de retour au Mali. L'analyse se fonde sur 313 entretiens recueillis auprès de migrants de retour, réalisés entre février et mai 2012, dans le cadre de l'enquête du projet CRIS. L'accent est mis sur les changements sociaux et économiques qui ont touché les migrants de retour, au cours des trois étapes de leur cycle migratoire : avant l'émigration, pendant le séjour à l'étranger et après le retour. Le principal objectif est d'évaluer dans quelle mesure et comment la « famille » a influencé ces changements comparativement à d'autres facteurs. Les résultats démontrent que plus nous situons les migrants de retour à l'intérieur d'un système de relations complexes, plus nous réussissons à évaluer l'influence de la famille sur les migrants et sur les résultats de l'expérience migratoire. Le facteur familial n'explique pas, à lui seul, pourquoi certains migrants réussissent à s'intégrer mieux que d'autres. D'autres facteurs examinés, relevant de l'engagement associatif et de la participation civique et politique du migrant de retour, méritent également un intérêt tout particulier. ; CRIS is co-funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC, Berne) and the European University Institute.

This article examines the role of institutional factors in shaping the integration paths of migrant health professionals. For this purpose, it draws on two studies focusing on Filipino and Indian nurses working in the UK, which rely on quantitative and qualitative methods, including a web survey and semi-structured interviews. The analysis shows that inequalities have arisen from differentiation processes induced by changes in the institutional settings. Furthermore, inequalities are often reflected in poor working conditions. The authors have identified restrictive rules on immigration and access to the profession as a source of uncertainty and reveal the differentiation of entry paths, with those arriving through an international recruitment agency more frequently disappointed with their working conditions.

L'articolo prende in esame i mutamenti nel settore del credito, cercando di coglierne i riflessi sulla rappresentanza del lavoro. Al fine di capire come sia affrontata la questione del cambiamento all'interno del sindacato, sono inoltre presentati i risultati di uno studio di caso su Fisac Toscana.

En este artículo analizamos el concepto de flexiguridad y su implementación en el Sur de Europa. Interesa mostrar los diferentes significados y variedades de flexiguridad, a través de comparar España e Italia. A partir de ahí, cuestionamos la idea de la transposición del modelo danés/holandés de flexiguridad al resto de países europeos, en particular a los del "modelo mediterráneo". Es decir, cuestionamos la viabilidad de transponer modelos mediante métodos de gobernanza multinivel que aspiren a una cierta convergencia inducida desde la UE. La variedad de modelos sociolaborales europeos hace que la flexiguridad tenga significados y manifestaciones distintas, incluso en casos similares como España e Italia, donde los distintos contextos pautan divergencias significativas a corto plazo en sus patrones de flexiguridad, aunque ello pueda matizarse si adoptamos un arco temporal más amplio. Así, el artículo muestra, para esos dos países, cómo el efecto societal limita la influencia del efecto inducido. ; This paper approaches the issue of flexicurity and its implementation in Southern Europe. The comparison between Italy and Spain shows the existence of different meanings and varieties of flexicurity. Hence we question the transposition of the Dutch / Danish flexicurity model to other European countries, and more specifically to those belonging to the Mediterranean cluster. In other words, we wonder about the viability of transposing employment models through multi-level governance mechanisms that aim at some convergence across countries. The variety of socio-economic models explains the existence of different meaning and manifestations of flexicurity even between the most-similar cases of Italy and Spain where short-term developments have pointed towards divergence in their flexicurity equilibriums, though the picture changes if we adopt a long-term perspective. The article shows how the societal effect limits the influence of the induced EU effect.