The debate on fake news is useful and interesting, but it is also necessary to take into consideration the case of news that is not invented or falsified, but more simply not understood by the media operator, who, finding in the superficial reading of the news, confirms some of his convictions and relaunches it with enthusiasm: to this point a real news has turned into a fake.
A brilliant example is the news shouted by "Leggo" regarding the data released by INPS on the labor market on 23 March (observatory on precariousness): "More fired, less work, stable contracts collapse”.
On the contrary, the INPS tells us:
· employment in the last 12 months (January 2017 on January 2016) increased by 351.000 units (balance between hirings and terminations). In particular, apprenticeship contracts (+20%) and fixed-term contracts (+13,5%) increased, but the transformation of fixed-term contracts into permanent contracts also increased (+4,6%).
· terminations increased (+2,7%) but only those due to the end of fixed-term contracts. Terminations relating to permanent contracts (therefore dismissals or voluntary resignations) decreased (-9,2%). And speaking of "more fired people", let's look at the reasons for termination of permanent employment relationships: we are talking about 46.900 cases. There is a very modest increase compared to the value of January 2016 (46.100) but it is determined above all by the growth of dismissals for contract changes and, secondly, of dismissals for just cause or justified subjective reason. On the other hand, there was a sharp decrease in dismissals for economic reasons or justified objective reasons (-7%), i.e. those to which the Jobs Act would have given the "green light". Also noteworthy is the decrease in voluntary resignations, which was affected by the introduction, in March 2016, of the obligation to submit online: -14%. Cursed Jobs Act..!
· A notation: both those hired with permanent contracts and fixed-term ones have wages higher than those of 12 months ago; in fact, hirings by salary class decreased up to €1.500, while those increased from €1.500 upwards for open-ended contracts, and from 1500 to 2000 for fixed-term contracts. Which confirms the ISTAT data on the average growth of wages (Observatory n.8)
So Leggo's "shout" should be rewritten as follows: "more employed, fewer people fired for economic reasons, fewer resignations, more apprentices, permanent hiring increases, even if only slightly". But do you want to put with the appeal of catastrophism ..?
Last observation: 2016 confirms the success of incentives for permanent hiring; 411.000 hires and 203.000 transformations from fixed-term contracts to permanent contracts benefited from the tax relief (equal to 38% of all permanent contracts). And on the other hand, permanent hirings, after the boom of 2015 mainly attributable to the need to regularize situations that are already open by making use of the advantages of incentives, have readjusted to around 30% of total hirings. It should be noted that the incentivized definitive hirings are distributed among the age groups in absolute uniformity with job placements in general: the lowest result is in the 15-24 age group, then rising.
Two considerations can be drawn from this:
· Recruitments with definitive contracts do not strictly depend on incentives (in any case 62% of the recruitments were made without decontribution) but the incentives give a boost which in macroeconomic terms is very significant: more than a third of the total of new recruits. If a reduction in the tax-contribution wedge were to become structural, the benefits would be evident. Then we should open a discussion on how to make this choice sustainable. If we cannot reduce the wedge for everyone, the priority is on the younger class, which has so far benefited the least from the incentives.
