COVID-19 and labour migration: investigating vulnerability in Italy and in the UK

This article provides preliminary analyses on how the Covid-19 pandemic is affecting the labour market positions of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Italy and in Great Britain. Our research interest stems from the findings of the EU funded SIRIUS project (Skills and integration of migrants, refugees and asylum applicants in European labour markets) as well as from literature which highlight that migrants’ roles in the European labour markets are characterised by a high level of vulnerability. Such a vulnerable situation depends, on the one hand, from the juridical-legal status that migrants receive when entering the new country of settlement, a status which may limit their rights and their access to regular employment and to services conducive to decent employment such as vocational training or language learning. On the other hand, migrants’ vulnerability depends also on they being over-represented in those jobs which have been qualified as ‘front-line’, and therefore more exposed to risks of contagion during the Covid-19 pandemic, such as workers in the care, or parcel distribution sectors. Hence, this paper discusses the effect of the intertwinement of the pandemic with a status of double-vulnerability on migrants’ life.