In the latest announcement of its annual schedule of work visas called ‘Decreto-Flussi’, the Italian government has allowed Pakistani nationals to avail seasonal and non-seasonal work visas for the year 2020-21. Over 30,000 work visas would be issued by the Italian government to the nationals from a few non-EU countries, including Pakistan.
Pakistani workers in agriculture, tourism, construction and Freight forwarding sectors can avail this opportunity.
Pakistan has been included in this category of visas after the lag of two years as a result of sustained efforts by the Pakistani embassy in Rome.
In his media talk, Ambassador Jauhar Saleem said that Italy hosts the largest Pakistani diaspora in the EU following Brexit, which has sent over $142 million in remittances in 2019-2020. He shared that the Pakistan community in Italy had been demanding Pakistan’s re-inclusion in the list of countries eligible for seasonal workers visas, ever since the facility was withdrawn two years ago. He added that the demand for Pakistani workers in the Italian market is on the rise consistently, especially in the agricultural sector. It is expected that under the current scheme, hundreds of Pakistani workers would obtain gainful employment in Italy.
Earlier, the Pakistani embassy also facilitated thousands of undocumented Pakistani workers in Italy to seek legal status through a scheme launched by the Italian government in June 2020 to regularise undocumented foreign workers. Over 18,000 Pakistanis applied for regularisation under that scheme. Despite the second wave of ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen a record number of fresh cases in recent days, the Pakistani embassy has kept its consular section, both in Rome and Milan, fully functional so as to facilitate the community in benefiting from the growing employment opportunities in Italy.
