The case of the Dignity Decree breaks out. In the technical report on the provision - signed by the President of the Republic and which entered into force with its publication in the Official Gazette - it is clearly written that with the new measures the number of jobs with fixed-term contracts will drop by 8.000, each year for ten years.
But the minister Luigi Di Maio, putative father of the decree, doesn't agree and sees the conspiracy: “It says that it will cause the loss of 8 thousand jobs in a year. That number, which for me has no validity, appeared the night before the dl was sent to the Quirinale. It is not a number put by my ministries or other ministers.” The truth is that “this dignity decree has lobbies of all kinds against it. My suspicion is that this number was a way to begin to weaken this decree and make a bit of a racket. It doesn't scare me », he assures. Di Maio's statement is entrusted, as usual, to Facebook. The not so veiled reference is to the Mef and the Accounting Department.
But the reaction that comes from the Mef is very harsh: "The technical reports are presented together with the measures by the proposing administrations, as well as in the case of the dignity decree, which has reached the Mef accompanied by a report with all the data, including that on the effects on employment contracts of the anti-precarious grip",
In fact, mathematics is not an opinion. The dignity decree has introduced a significant tightening on fixed-term contracts with the government's stated aim of increasing permanent jobs. To obtain this result, the government has reduced the time for renewals with random payment from 36 to 24 months, reduced the possible extensions from 5 to 4, increased the cost of contributions to be paid by companies after the first extension and has reintroduced random payments. The decree has provoked protests and reactions from the business world: Confindustria, confederations of crafts and commerce and tourism have seen real damage in the tightening on contracts just as the summer and tourist season is in full swing. Also for this reason some changes (on seasonal and on vouchers in agriculture and hotels) will be reintroduced during the conversion phase.
It is precisely on the tightening of the durations that the technical report is based – the subject of controversy by the Minister of Development and Employment. The report is prepared by the government and accompanies each provision that is presented in parliament and illustrates its benefits or disadvantages, documenting them with numbers. It is there that the negative impact on employment is estimated. Based on data from the Ministry of Labour around 2 million fixed-term contracts are activated every year. Of these, 4 percent exceed 24 months, so they are already in conflict with the new rules. Well, of these 80 thousand reports over 24 months, 10 percent estimates the government in the technical report, i.e. 8 thousand, will be lost every year.
The Government confesses: the dignity decree will reduce employment by 8000 people a year for the next 10 years.
It has never happened in recent years that a technical report wrote it in black and white.
And they didn't take into account the causal effect because it would be much worse! pic.twitter.com/mt2zmjLFFR— Marco Leonardi (@marcoleonardi9) July 12 2018
As can be seen from the table, extrapolated from the technical report on the decree and published on Twitter, the impact on 2018 is limited to only 3.300 fewer contracts as we are already halfway through the year when the decree became fully operational with the publication in the Gazette on 13 July (click to read the final text).
