The 1 May Decree sets a 12-month limit on the duration of extracurricular work placements

The Constitutional Court, in subsequent rulings, has recognised the exclusive regional competence in matters of vocational training. Article 117 of the Constitution assigns the exclusive legislative competence of the State to the definition of general rules, whilst assigning concurrent competence to education, without prejudice to the autonomy of educational institutions and with the exclusion of education and vocational training (the latter being the exclusive competence of the regions).

In a number of judgments (including, amongst others, Judgment 50/2005), the Constitutional Court has clarified that ‘the exclusive competence of the Regions in the field of education and vocational training concerns public education and vocational training, which may be provided either in educational institutions designated for that purpose, or through facilities established by the individual Regions themselves in accordance with the specific characteristics of local circumstances, or in private bodies with which agreements are concluded’.

On this basis, the Constitutional Court has declared certain provisions of the law on extracurricular work placements to be unconstitutional on the grounds that they infringe upon the exclusive competence of the regions; for this reason, the Chamber’s legal experts have called for ‘the scope of this provision to be assessed in the light of the aforementioned ruling of the Constitutional Court’.

A report by Adapt highlights that 77% of work placements in Italia are aimed at young people under the age of 30, for whom the placement represents their first contact with the world of work in 41% of cases. Among under-30s in the 20–24 and 25–29 age groups, 91% fall into the category of unemployed/never-employed or recent graduates, whilst interns who have attained a tertiary qualification account for 25% of the total.

The same report highlights the ‘almost total absence’ of universities among the accredited bodies that are formally authorised to promote and organise work placements (by designing their content and structure, and ensuring the educational value of the experience), educational institutions which, thanks to their placement and career guidance services, could play a central role but instead account for only 3% of placements (in the 2020–2022 period, according to the latest ANPAL monitoring). Meanwhile, authorised intermediaries and public employment services together account for 55% of all placements.

 As highlighted by INAPP, 31 days after the end of the programme, only 48.6% of participants go on to secure a job contract, a figure that rises to 58% for those with qualifications beyond a school-leaving certificate.

According to Adapt, extracurricular work placements have become an ‘inappropriate route into the labour market’; all too often, ‘they have been reduced to experiences with little educational value, used by companies to meet temporary labour needs, without offering any real prospects for professional development’, an “inexpensive and unprotected substitute for a proper work placement contract, which is currently lacking in our legal system following the repeal of the relevant contractual framework introduced by the Biagi Law”.

According to Adapt, this trend has ‘had a significant impact on apprenticeships, which remain underutilised to this day and suffer from unfair competition from a system that is simpler and less costly for businesses, but far less beneficial for young people’. For this reason, the president of the Adapt Foundation, Matteo Colombo, has proposed the abolition of extracurricular work placements, except for disadvantaged groups, ‘restoring the central role of work-study programmes and creating concrete opportunities for dual apprenticeships’.