Demand for migrant workers outstrips quota on 'click day'

(ANSA) - ROME, MAR 27 - Demand to hire non-EU citizens for employment in Italy under the country's quota system for 2023 outstripped the number of available places as online applications got underway on Monday, so-called "click day".
    Farmers' association Coldiretti said this was indication of the lack of labour in various sectors and called for the entry quota to be raised.
    The decree on migration flows for 2023, approved at the end of last year, set the quota at 82.705 entries and included different types of workers including employees, seasonal workers and freelancers.
    Of the new entries in 2023, 44,000 are the quotas for seasonal labour in agriculture and in the hotel and tourism sector.
    Major agricultural organizations say, however, that this number is low.
    "In the countryside with the arrival of spring, there is a need for at least 100,000 workers to fill the labor shortage that hit the countryside hard last year with the significant loss of crops," said Coldiretti President Ettore Prandini, calling for a new decree.
    The flow decree for 2022 set the number of entries at 69,700.
    (ANSA).