By Dea Bakashvili, a YoCoJoin reporter
“Rather than being helped to continue my professional development, I was made to feel like I didn’t belong. I didn’t understand my rights, and no one took the time to explain them,” says Davit Kurdadze, a 20-year-old migrant from Georgia living and working in Brussels. His experience reflects the reality faced by thousands of young migrants across Belgium – hardworking and yet often overlooked.
Belgium has one of the lowest youth employment rates in the EU for non-EU citizens aged 15-29, at just 37.4%. Across the European Union, young non-EU citizens are also twice as likely to face poverty or social exclusion compared to their EU-born peers. Behind these numbers are countless young people facing insecure jobs and legal uncertainty, often with little guidance or protection.
In Belgium, migration-focused trade unions have stepped in as some of the few actors actively working to support and empower young migrants. But how effective are these efforts in practice? And do young migrants feel represented?
In this article, we explore how trade unions engage with young migrant workers in Belgium today.
Who represents young migrant workers?
There are diverse trade unions operating in Belgium. The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is the voice of workers, representing 45 million members from 94 trade union organisations in 42 European countries, including the 10 European Trade Union Federations.
It has a Youth Committee to strengthen the position of young people within the existing trade union structure. However, the involvement of young migrants in viral trade union activities and services, like ETUC, remains challenging.
In its report, Youth Committee 2019-2023, the ETUC provided a guide with recommendations on how to engage young people in the work of trade unions. It stated that a number of trade unions do not collect age-disaggregated data, meaning that they have no clear picture of how many young people are part of their membership or what roles these young workers occupy. Without this information, it becomes difficult to design meaningful, youth-focused strategies to respond to the specific challenges they face in the labour market.
Yet for both current and potential young migrant workers, access to clear information about trade unions and their role is essential. These trade unions are meant to protect and provide crucial support, but for many young migrants, they remain largely invisible.
“No one ever mentioned any trade unions like ETUC or similar. I didn’t even know these structures existed and certainly didn’t know that they might be there to support people like me…I would have hoped for practical support about my rights to help understand contracts and job conditions, and especially guidance on how to reconnect with my profession”, says Kurdadze.
According to the United Nations, national governments are primarily responsible for integrating third-country nationals into the labour market, especially when it comes to young migrants lacking institutional and procedural knowledge who do not have enough information about how their skill set could benefit their stay in the selected country. Integration challenges
The European Union’s Action Plan for Integration on Inclusion 2021 – 2027 outlines the broad set of measures aimed at addressing integration-related challenges.
Among its key findings, young migrants (18-24) born outside the EU are much more likely (21%) than natives (12.5%) to be “neither in employment nor in education and training”. This reflects structural inequalities and underlines how many young migrants struggle to find stable paths.
The Action Plan also acknowledges that many young migrants are overqualified for the jobs they hold.
Kurdadze recalls his adventure after arriving in Belgium. “Even though I had permission to work, I faced a wall of obstacles. Organisations felt inaccessible and uninterested in my background or experience. My qualifications in media didn’t seem to count for anything, and opportunities to reconnect with my profession were either unavailable or impossible to access without strong local networks, which I didn’t have. My skills were invisible…”
According to the report, while trade unions in Belgium already use various tools to communicate with their members, these channels are rarely designed with young migrants in mind. Many unions lack strategies to reach, recruit, organise and promote young migrants, which leaves many of them isolated and vulnerable.
The General Labour Federation of Belgium (FGTB/ABVV), the country’s largest socialist trade union, launched the “Refugees and Work” project in late 2024, under its Force Défense Initiative. It aims to integrate refugees, who are among the most vulnerable migrant groups, into the labour market. However, it lacks the focus on the empowerment of young migrants.
Azzurra, a 22-year-old intra-EU migrant from Italy, moved to Brussels with a European Solidarity Corps (ESC) program. During her time in Belgium, she didn’t have any direct or indirect experience working with trade unions, mainly because she was not aware of the kind of support they could offer.
“It’s not that we’re not interested”, Azzurra said, “it’s just that no one really told us how to reach out or that we even could”. She also mentioned that someone she befriended in the programme, who is originally from Palestine, hadn’t worked with unions either, even though she had a more complex legal path.
Obligation to act
Under the EU’s reinforced Youth Guarantee, there is a clear obligation for all member states, including Belgium, to act and ensure that young people under 30, regardless of their nationality or legal status, are offered quality employment, education and training opportunities. Yet in practice, implementation often falls short when it comes to non-EU youth.
Trade unions can be a transformative force for youth migrants in Belgium, not only in helping them understand their rights, but also in advocating for fair working conditions and gaining recognition for their existing skills and qualifications.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Media Diversity Institute Global. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Media Diversity Institute. Any question or comment should be addressed to [email protected]
