There is still too much job insecurity and low pay

By 2025, the Italian labour market as a whole had reached high levels of employment. The employment rate for the population aged 15–64 rose to 62.5 per cent, the highest level in the comparable series. However, this improvement was largely driven by the older segments of the workforce and did not result in a similar trend for young people. In short, the quantitative improvement did not eliminate the greater vulnerability faced by young people (the ‘youth penalty’) once they secured a job. In 2025, 31.3 per cent of employees aged between 15 and 29 were on fixed-term contracts, compared with 10.8 per cent of all employees (aged 15–64). Among 15–24-year-olds, this figure rose to 49.9 per cent. The gap is even more pronounced when it comes to involuntary part-time work. Among young Italians aged between 15 and 29 who are in part-time work, 61.4 per cent say they are doing so because they have not found a full-time job, compared with the EU average of 18.2 per cent. The problem therefore concerns not only access to employment, but also the amount of work and disposable income once in employment. Wages also reveal a generational disadvantage. In 2022, Italian workers under the age of 30 earned average hourly wages 36.4 per cent lower than those aged over 50. Fixed-term contracts also offered average wages 24.6 per cent lower than those on permanent contracts. Age, contractual discontinuity and lower work intensity therefore tend to overlap, slowing down economic independence and wage progression.