From reduced working hours to services for children, the picture of corporate welfare in Italy

The priority for Italians? Working less. The seventh Report Censis-Eudaimon on corporate welfare, presented today in Rome, makes this clear: 67.7% of Italian employees would like to reduce the time spent at work in the future. A wish expressed by 65.5% of young people, 66.9% of adults and 69.6% of the over-50s.

Already today, in fact, 30.5% of the employed (34.7% among young people) state that they engage in work on a strictly necessary basis, refusing overtime, calls or e-mails outside working hours and only doing what they are supposed to do. For 52.1% of the employed, work currently influences less their private life than in the past, because they devote themselves to activities and values that they consider more important. This is shared by 54.2% of young people, 50.1% of adults and 52.6% of the elderly. Almost 28% gave up a better job than their current one because the location was too far from their home. Resignation is not a flight from work, rather a rush from one job to another. Inps data, the report goes on to point out, indicate that the three-month outplacement rate for voluntary resignations under the age of 60 was 67.0%, which is higher than in previous years.

Record employment figures, more stable jobs and higher female employment therefore coexist with what Censis calls "widespread subjective disaffection to work". It is an Italian paradox, which has a consequence: companies are called upon to retain or attract workers, especially young ones. And this is where corporate welfare comes into play, called upon to measure itself against the new reality of the labour market and its effects on companies. Retaining and attracting workers is increasingly becoming a priority for companies, just as it is a priority for workers to be able to manage flexible and shorter working hours. More and more workers know about it: 81.8% of the employed know what it is (32.7% precisely and 49.1% broadly), while in 2018 it was 60.2%. Corporate welfare is also highly appreciated and desired, as among workers who benefit from it 84.3% would like it to be enhanced, and among those who do not benefit from it 83.8% would like it to be introduced in their company. In addition, 79.5% of the employed would appreciate a salary increase in the form of one or more welfare benefits. This was stated by 94.2% of managers, 78.2% of office workers and 74.8% of blue collar workers.

82% of companies have activated ad hoc strategies to retain workers and 66% to attract them. The most important initiatives undertaken are for 67% the activation of corporate welfare devices, for 55% new flexibility in working hours, for 33% better pay conditions and for 28% the provision of new benefits.

The survey emphasises the imbalances in the labour market. Imbalances that highlight the importance of corporate welfare solutions. These include the employment rate of women with children: it stands at 58.6%, that of men with children at 89.3%. The gap at the expense of women is -30.7 percentage points, while in Germany it is -17.4, in France -14.4, in Spain -19 and in Greece -29.1. The arrival of children revives a traditional family model, with the old gender division of labour. In 2022, resignations and consensual terminations from work for parents with children up to one year of age involved 44.7 thousand mothers and 16.7 thousand fathers. Regarding the reasons for resignation, 41.7 per cent of mothers and 2.8 per cent of fathers resigned because of difficulties in reconciling work and childcare due to the shortage of care services, and 21.9 per cent of mothers and 4.3 per cent of fathers because of difficulties in conciliating work and childcare due to work-related problems in the company. Resignations and consensual terminations of parent workers with children up to one year were 39,738 in 2017 and are over 61,000 in 2022. The female employment rate also remains low for women without children: it is 66.3%, while for males without children it is 76.7%.