Despite increasing numbers of vacancies for highly skilled jobs in innovative sectors of the economy, highly skilled migrants are often discriminated against despite their qualifications. This discrimination represents a relevant issue, especially for women with a background in male‐dominated and highly regulated fields, such as science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM). We draw on qualitative data collected in Northern Italy from in‐depth interviews and focus groups with women from different countries and STEMM qualifications. Adopting an intersectionality approach, we illuminate the macro‐, organizational‐, and individual‐level barriers that prevent highly skilled migrant women from finding a job that measures up to their qualification level and sector, and we highlight the resources available to them to overcome these barriers. By emphasizing the intersectional ties of being a woman, a migrant, and a STEMM professional, we identify relevant areas for policy intervention to valorize migration in support of innovation and labor outcomes in Italy and in other countries.

While global economies are in a tremendous need for talented workers that could fill vacancies in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, available evidence shows that highly skilled migrants with a background in these fields are not protected from brain waste and deskilling. In this paper, we add to the previous literature on the employability of highly skilled migrant women from the specific—and under-investigated—perspective of labor market intermediaries. We specifically investigate what the barriers and resources are for employability of highly skilled migrant women in STEM, as perceived by labor market intermediaries’ professionals; and what the training needs are that labor market intermediaries’ professionals perceive to effectively work with this target group. We use unique explorative survey data collected in 2018 in five countries (Greece, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, United Kingdom) from professionals working in diverse labor market intermediary organizations. We find that these professionals perceive the employability of migrant women in STEM as rather low, and strongly determined by migrant women’s psychological capital. Professionals in Southern Europe perceive structural barriers as more important than those in other countries. Professionals display training needs related to ad-hoc mentoring and networking competences for this specific target group. We discuss theoretical and practical implications.

Competition among developed industrialised countries for highly skilled migrants has increased in recent decades with the onset of the knowledge-based economy and society (Triandafyllidou and Isaakyan 2014)