How has work changed in Italy from 2007 to 2020? To begin with, a lot has changed. As for how, a recent report published by Cida-Adapt explains it very well which has decided to permanently promote an Observatory to provide analyses, starting "from the numbers to go back to the explanation of the phenomena affecting the world of work without pre-established positions and, above all , without falling into the demonization of new technologies”.
The truth is that everything is changing (not so much because of Covid given the block on layoffs still in place) and that the old categories - subordinate work and self-employment - with two almost opposite worlds are creaking. Labor policies are still looking to the past with the result that reality goes in one direction and laws in another. Hence the decision to publish the report Labor issues on a quarterly basis to shine a light on the changes taking place. Cida is the Federation of public and private executives, Adapt is the association of labor law studies and research founded by Marco Biagi.
The basic thesis is that the combination of self-employment and employee work has already been in crisis for some time and that it would be useful to overcome it. In the period under consideration there was a deep economic crisis in 2008, the Jobs Act was enacted which had the ambition of abolishing the gray area of subordinated contracts, the Dignity Decree was enacted. At the same time, technology and innovation have further stressed the labor market. The pandemic did the rest.
The numbers speak for themselves. In Italy there are 15 million permanent contracts and 2,6 million fixed-term contracts (about 15,4% of the total). Independent workers are just over 5,1 million. Among the employees, the most numerous are white collars who have increased by about 1 million units and manual workers (about 500 more). On the other hand, there are very few executives - about 3% of subordinates, in sharp decline. Added up to the cadres - which remained stable - we arrive at around 8,5%, a lower percentage - known Labor issues – to any other European country. Looking at gender, men prevail with a significant gap compared to women.
Looking to the fixed-term work, since 2007 there has been a strong growth in the number of contracts, reaching 3,2 million in 2019 but then drastically reduced by the freeze on layoffs that took place in 2020 in the pandemic phase, which prompted companies to pour the need for flexibility. Despite the correction, however, the growth was 430 units.
And to understand in which direction the labor market could move in the coming years, it is useful to take a look at the dynamics related to age:
“The share of permanent employees between the ages of 15 and 34 has decreased significantly in recent years. And although it is noted that the 25-34 age group is the majority, it decreased by about ten points between 2007 and 2020. A downward trend is also seen for the 15-24 age group, with a decrease of about 15 percentage points".
Source: Labor issues, n.1, January 2021
How do you explain? Scarce bargaining power of young people, fixed-term contracts used as "test" but also a scenario that could "make one imagine, precisely by virtue of the recent strong growth, in the next few years a strong recomposition of the structure of subordinate work with an increase in the share of temporary workers". Conversely, the inverse trend sees an increase in the youth component in fixed-term contracts where young people between 15 and 24 represent 59% of the employed and those between 25 and 34 the remaining 27,2%.
To understand the profound change in subordinate work, the data on the duration of contracts is striking: those most numerous ever arrive up to 30 days (3,9 million), almost half last only 1 day (1,5 million). In practice, since 2016 a gap has been created: on the one hand the contracts that grow the most are those up to 30 days (3,9 million) and on the other those between 90 and 365 days, which reward loyalty and professionalism (3,5 million).
The classic categories of self-employment are also creaking as new jobs in innovative sectors are difficult to pigeonhole in traditional areas. In general, in self-employment the more professional categories (not necessarily classified in the Orders) are strengthened and instead the self-employed workers who undergo the transformations that have invested the trade suffer. But Istat itself, notes Labor issues, feels the need to deepen the profiles and launches that of dependent contractors for "those who in the last 12 months have had a client from whom they have obtained at least 75% of the proceeds and who establishes the start and end times of the working day". There are around 450 employed and they are those most on the borderline between autonomy and subordination. The independents are concentrated in commerce and services, little or nothing in agriculture, few even in transport, information and financial activities.
How do temporary employees experience their condition? With anxiety, they are afraid of losing their job and not finding it again. Dependent contractors, on the other hand, feel less insecure about their job, perhaps because they are more aware of their skills and higher level of education.
