II PALERMO HACKATHON - ROUND TWO
Encouraging a precise and well organised procedure in applying for a job, job training and paid internship in Palermo

The challenge for this hackathon, specifically analyses the case in which a migrant requests a job opportunity, on-the-job training or a paid internship through a private company and goes through the bureaucratic process to finalize the procedure. This challenge takes place in different phases and with a different set of actors:

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• Job Agency;

• Employment Center;

• Private company;

• Personal tutor;

• Other migrants;

 

A migrant's journey into the job world can begin with a traineeship in the territory of Palermo which starts from the migrant's first interaction with the Job Agency. Not all migrants know of the existence of the Employment Center, neither of the Job Agencies. In most cases, only migrants who are hosted in second reception centers receive this "advise". In these cases, the migrants are suggested to go to a Job Agency, where they are initially introduced to different job opportunities, and matched to a specific enterprise that "employs" them after a series of individual or group assessment meetings, carried out by the Job Agencies first and then, by the company. The Job Agency coordinates the whole procedure applying for different fundings (public and private), that allow to provide the trainee with a monthly allowance.

 

Before starting to work, the migrants need the document "Availability For Work" and the "Nullaosta" from the Employment Center. Meantime, the Job Agency finalises the required documentation and assigns a personal tutor (from the company) that manages the relationship between the migrant trainee and the company's staff and, together with the tutor from the Job Agency, follows their learning path. At this point, the Job Agency must provide a list of documents, some relating to the migrant, others of the hosting company, which are examined by the Employment Center while the migrants apply for "Availability to work":

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• Training contract (prepared by the Job Agency & the enterprise) and company data sheet;

• Tax and social security number (Codice Fiscale);

• Bank account;

• Regular permit of stay

• ID card (not always required).

 

Once the Employment Center confirms the validity of the aforementioned documents, the migrant, the Job Agency and the company, joint together through the internship agreement (which may usually last from 3 months up to 1 year) the "Nullaosta" is dispatched. At this point the contract can be completed by all parties (migrant, tutor, enterprise, Job Agency and Employment Center), and the migrant can start their internship.

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The challenges with this process can be encountered throughout the whole migrant's journey, considering not only the migrants' viewpoints but also the ones of public and private institutions. A huge amount of migrants out of the second reception centres are not familiar with this process; and even if they are introduced to the possibility, they might struggle in understanding what is the process like and what kind of documents are needed throughout different steps. Migrants might present documentation that are about to expire (e.g. Residence Permit), and – considering the long bureaucratic timings of the public authorities – this may consistently slow down the internship process. Actually, the process to obtain the Availability for Work became digital, thus those unfamiliar with digital application might be disoriented.

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Furthermore, the general incomprehension of the different procedures does not help the migrant in providing the right documentation, which - in the absence of an identity document (sometimes required and sometimes not) as well as the ambiguities regarding the possibility of opening or not a bank account, would involve a waste of time and resources on both sides.

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Another challenge encountered in the journey refers to the financing issue. When the Nullaosta is given by the Employment Center and the internship starts, a delay in the disbursement of the allowance might occur (f.e. if the money come from public funds). As a consequence migrants might feel confused and this would encourage them to drop out from the program (without mentioning the tensions created among different offices).

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It is visible how even if these challenges are diverse, they are somehow connected. The need to enhance the communication among different actors would make sure that migrants are better introduced to the type of documents required by the Employment Center; at the same enhancing the communication between the Employment Center and the Job Agency, would make sure to recognise a missing or expiring document in time. Simultaneously, by improving the communication of the whole procedure to the migrants, we could avoid migrants to drop out when feeling confused for a delayed payment (f.e. in the case they would need of any kind of support – like accomodation – while waiting for the salary to be disbursed), and it would surely facilitate the access to the service to those migrants that are outside the reception centers.

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In this hackathon, you will be encouraged to develop a specific tool that can facilitate the process of solving the challenges of applying for a job, a on-the-job training or a paid internship in Palermo. We envisioned this tool as a Wiki space. Your challenge will be to generate the technical structure of the space, together with the inclusion, management and sustainability of the information introduced. You will need to respond to questions such as: what is the information that needs to be included? Who will be allowed to include it? How do we make sure that the introduced information follows the same structure and responds to the migrants' information needs? Who will manage the information? How do we make sure that the data collected is accurate and updated? How do we address the language barrier of those who do not speak the local language?