Values, skills and reforms to bridge the gap between labour supply and demand
Growth and NRP have boosted employment, but the gap to be bridged between opportunities and skills, especially between young people and women, is also growing
2' min read
Key points
2' min read
Structural reforms that facilitate sound employment, but also more transversal skills and a cultural change.
This is what young people and women need in order to take advantage of the job opportunities that have been growing since the end of covid. This is the opinion of the speakers at the meeting organised on the topic by Confcooperative in Piazza Duomo in Trento. Young people and women are defined as an invisible population, because they are not able to insert themselves satisfactorily into the dynamics of the economy.
Facts
Statistics speak of an important increase in employment in recent years: from the lows of 2008 it has risen to a boom of over 24 million workers registered last March, corresponding to a participation rate of 63%. ISTAT, however, reports that employment fell slightly in March (-0.1%) due to the employment difficulties of women, the under-35s, fixed-term employees and the self-employed, who are the fragile segments of the system.
"If we had the same employment rate as the European Union average,' explains Andrea Toma, head of the labour and economics area of Censis, 'we would have three million more employed people. We have 1.8 million neets (young people who do not have and are not looking for a job) and a mismatch that weighs in at over 27 billion euro, equal to 1.5% of GDP. In addition, there is competition between territories and a strong demographic decline to deal with. It is therefore necessary to find a balance between technology and innovation, which runs too fast and risks leaving companies and people behind'.
Youth and Work
According to Andrea Sangiorgi, president of Giovani Confcooperative, there needs to be more connection between universities and the world of work to encourage the birth of new businesses, which is hindered by bureaucracy and difficulties in accessing credit, and also to stop the flight abroad. 'We need to put young people in a position to acquire the skills they need to enter the world of work,' says Sangiorgi, 'to be able to think about soft skills and relationships between people.
