ROME: Italy’s hard-right government has agreed to issue 500,000 visas for non-EU workers over the next three years, but a top trade union warned Tuesday that only structural change would tackle labor shortages.

The government of far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said a total of 497,550 workers would be allowed in over the 2026-2028 period, starting with around 165,000 in 2026.

This is up from the 450,000 quota set by Meloni’s government for 2023-2025 period — itself a sharp increase on the 75,700 quota for 2022 and around 70,000 for 2021.

Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, has sought to reduce the number of undocumented migrants to Italy.

But her government has also increased pathways for legal migration for non-EU workers to tackle labor shortages in an aging country with a sluggish birth rate.

The greatest number of visas over the next three years — some 267,000 — will be given for seasonal work in the agricultural and tourism sectors.

Italy’s main agricultural lobby, Coldiretti, welcomed the new visa plan as an “important step forward to ensure the availability of workers in the fields, and with it, food production.”

But a top official in the CGIL trade union — Italy’s oldest and largest — said Tuesday the new quotas did not address migration dynamics and labor needs.

Maria Grazia Gabrielli pointed to the number of applications that were far lower than the available quotas, with the exception of domestic work.

In 2023 and 2024, only 7.5-7.8 percent of the quotas actually resulted in a residence permit, she said in a statement, pointing to their ineffectiveness.

Gabrielli criticized the government’s policy of prioritising applicants from countries who discourage their nationals from illegally migrating to Italy.

A 2023 decree allowed preferential quotas from countries, such as those in North Africa, who help Italy fight human traffickers and conduct media campaigns warning of the dangers of crossing the Mediterranean.

She called it a system “that takes no account whatsoever of the reasons for migration dynamics and the need for a response that does not focus on punitive logic and rewards for some countries.”

Italy’s foreign worker policy is fraught with loopholes and possibilities for fraud, with criminal gangs exploiting the system and even foreign workers already in Italy applying for visas.

The union leader said structural work was needed — including regularising workers already in Italy — to help employers struggling to find labor and to try to keep foreign workers out of irregular situations.