Business and academia, the great alliance for the future of young people

For an indicator that is improving, the school dropout rate falling to 8.2 per cent in 2025 and leading us to reach the EU target five years early, there are others that still leave something to be desired: from young university graduates who are still too few (and whom we sometimes even see fleeing abroad) to youth employment that is perhaps rising too slowly, to the difficulties in hiring that two out of three companies complain of on a permanent basis, the so-called mismatch, which has now become a structural feature of our labour market squeezed between denatality and transitions taking place, starting with digital and green. An intricate tangle that can only be untangled - it is now a shared conviction - with a great alliance between all the players involved, universities, Its Academy, schools, companies, and the world of professional and continuing training. All sitting on the same side of the table, starting, why not, precisely from the panels of the Trento Festival of Economics.

The latest Unioncamere-Ministry of Labour data have well photographed the starting situation: from 2025 to 2029 the world of work will express a professional need estimated at between 3.3 and 3.7 million workers. Every year, therefore, the doors of employment will open wide for 247/268 thousand university graduates or those with an Its Academy degree (38% of the total calculated as the average of the two scenarios), for 185,000-216,000 workers with technical-professional secondary education, and so on. But here the problems begin. For Stem (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) degrees, it is estimated that between 9,000 and 18,000 could be missing each year, mainly with an engineering background and in mathematical, physical and computer sciences. For economics and statistics, the shortage could be 12-17 thousand. For the medical-sanitary address it would be 7-8 thousand. A shortage of supply is also expected for technical-professional secondary education. It is estimated that there will be a shortage of between 6,000 and 32,000 young people per year with a five-year degree, particularly in the fields of mechanics, mechatronics and energy, administration, finance, marketing, construction, environment and land and transport logistics. Decidedly more pronounced will be the mismatch related to IeFP pathways, with an offer that will only be able to cover about half of the needs.

The Minister for Education and Merit, Giuseppe Valditara, has responded to the problem by putting the 4+2 model on track and strengthening the Its Academy. But a different impetus is also required from the academic world, as the Minister for Universities, Anna Maria Bernini, never tires of repeating. With an additional complication for a country that after the Covid interlude has returned to being a net exporter of human capital: succeeding in retaining our talents to prevent the damage of young graduates still far behind the EU average from being followed by the mockery of having to bear the cost of their training and leaving other countries to benefit instead.

This discourse inevitably becomes more complex in the light of ongoing geopolitical tensions and personally involves the business world, which is itself engaged with technological renewal. As Michele Pignotti, Managing Director of Sace, and Paolo Scudieri, founder of the Fondazione Achille Scudieri, will tell us in another panel at the Festival, which will also feature the Minister for Enterprise and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso.

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