The youth unemployment is reaching worrying numbers in Italy and the Youth Guarantee addressing the NEET, young people who are not studying or working, is still facing many structural problems and its start is being delayed concretely. Unemployment rate in Italy is more than 43% according to Istat data, in countertrend comparing with Eurostat data. The increase in employment counts an enhancement in particular in the group of people between 55 and 64 years old : from 38.4% in 2002 to 51.8% in 2014.
Less significant but indicative as a positive trend are the data regarding those between 20 and 64 years old that registered an increase from 68.4 % in 2014 to 69.2 %. While Italy is third to last when it comes to employment stats, same level as Spain 59.7 %, following us only Croatia, 59.2%, and Greece at 53.3%.
Youth Guarantee, between strategies and lack of sources
Italy counts 542.369 thousands of people registered in the Youth Guarantee program, around 279.653 thousands have been followed , but only 83.061 received at least one job offer. These data would be explained to spontaneous cancellations from the program or to the non-suitability of the candidates to the very strict criteria of the Youth Guarantee, around 70.372 thousands until now. “Some young people cannot be identified as NEET because they have a job or they study or they are more than 29 years old and so they are excluded from the program, others decided to cancel themselves” Bruno Busacca, national coordinator for the Youth Guarantee and chief of the secretariat of the minister Poletti, said during a meeting on youth employment at the Italian permanent representation in Brussels “The registrations continue to rise: every week between 10 thousands and 12 thousands of young people subscribe to the program. We estimate that at the end there will be 800 thousands of subscriptions, 700 thousands of them would be eligible”. Furthermore, the goal is to register at least half of the NEET in Italy by the end of December, they are in total around 1 million and a half and 2 millions. But the sources provided to Italy are only enough for 560 thousands of young people. Also a lack of structures is evident : 9 thousands of people work in the employment centers, while in France they are around 50 thousands and in UK 65 thousands.
The biggest challenge is to get the NEET involved
“The Youth Guarantee mask a structural deficit and if unemployment runs for a long term period, more than two years, the driving force of Europe risks to jam” Loris Di Pietrantonio, Deputy Head of Unit at European Employment Strategy at the EU Commission, said “There is a strong waiting for the decree in Italy on the active policies and the implementation of the Youth Guarantee, there’s hope in the Jobs act”. While one of the problems is also the lack of a dual system of education and enterprise that would create a transit from education to the job market “The main challenge is to understand who is and how to take on a NEET, whether in education or in work”. Having a look at the data concrete results appear limited “But Italy did well how it did to start, gradualness is inevitable and the differences between countries in Europe are not few. Denmark for example already a Youth Guarantee, Sweden had just to modify something to the model it had” Cinzia Masina, Vice Deputy Head of Unit for Italy, Denmark and Sweden at the general directorate on Employment at the EU Commission, said. In the upcoming years, according to EU data, there will be around 900 thousands of job places offers in the digital sector, the Italian Employment Ministry made an agreement with Google for an e-learning at distance “ Crescere in Digitale” (Grow up in digital), that counts around 3 thousands of internship for the subscribers of the Youth Guarantee, to try to fill the gap of knowledge, quite often they are just basic knowledge. In the meantime, additional 175 million Euro have been approved in Strasbourg recently as pre-financing for the implementation of the youth employment Initiative.
@IreneGiuntella
Less significant but indicative as a positive trend are the data regarding those between 20 and 64 years old that registered an increase from 68.4 % in 2014 to 69.2 %. While Italy is third to last when it comes to employment stats, same level as Spain 59.7 %, following us only Croatia, 59.2%, and Greece at 53.3%.
