Events, employment grows, but casual contracts prevail

The good news is that the number of people employed in Italy in the world of events, so affected in the pandemic years, is growing. The bad news is that this is not always quality employment, but a certain opacity still seems to prevail in the sector.

This is according to a survey conducted by ToGet4U - a digital platform specialising in matching qualified professionals and event organisers - based on data from the latest Labour Market Report of the National Economic and Labour Council (CNEL), which shows a 35 per cent increase in the use of non-standard contracts (i.e. all forms of casual employment other than permanent, full-time contracts) among workers under 30.

The sectors with the highest incidence of short, irregular or on-call contracts are tourism, catering, entertainment and events. Young people, ToGet4U explain, are the most exposed, 'often with low wages (below the threshold of 9 euros per hour gross) and more frequently without contractual protection'. In addition, agencies play an intermediation role that is often 'inadequate and opaque, leading to the exploitation of workers and long delays in payments'.

On the other hand, the principals - companies, agencies and event organisers - have to deal with the consequences of a structural vicious circle in the sector. Turnover is very high, workers are poorly motivated and there is a lack of binding contracts or stable collaboration, also due to increasingly last-minute planning by companies. As a result, in a context where organisational times are increasingly tight and economic margins narrow, there is a tendency to favour quantity over quality, with the risk of selecting unprepared or unsuitable staff.

The lack of centralised and reliable recruitment tools also complicates the situation: many databases are obsolete or outdated, and relationships are managed informally, without clarity of responsibilities between agency, worker and final client. In all this, event personnel are perceived as a temporary labour force, without real enhancement or quality incentives, directly impacting also the image and effectiveness of the event itself.It was precisely in the direction of making the recruitment system in the sector more effective and modern that ToGet4U was born in Turin in 2021, which now has over 30,000 registered resources in Italy and, in 2024, had over 3,000 events to its credit since it began. The objective of the platform is 'to simplify the process of personnel selection and management, exploiting all the advantages of a digital platform that guarantees a fast, intuitive process and a reduction in unnecessary costs'.