“We have always been the leading fund in the continuous training system in Italy: to confirm this, today we have over 200 member companies and more than 4,5 million registered workers, equal to almost 50% of the entire group of companies and workers belonging to the system of interprofessional funds. These numbers are striking if we consider that in 2004, the year the Fund was established, there were around 18 companies and 1,3 million workers”. With these words, the president of Fondimpresa Bruno Scuotto closed the two-day event at the Technical Auditorium in Rome, entitled "The future of knowledge, companies and workers in transformation". The meeting was also organized to celebrate the anniversary of the Interprofessional Fund for Continuing Education of Confindustria, CGIL, CISL and UIL, which turns fifteen this year.
“But it's not enough – continued Scuotto in his speech – that companies and workers join if, then, they don't use the Fund. In this overall picture, we have managed to increase the involvement of our members, bringing them to almost 100 companies involved and almost 3 million workers trained in fifteen years, making the most of the potential of the Fund's three financing instruments. From 2004 to today we have financed training projects for over 2,5 billion euros“. Scuotto then listed the various training initiatives, divided by sector.
With the company Training account for example, almost 79 training plans have been launched – proposed by the company planning of the members and sized on the basis of the contributions paid – to train over 2 million workers with the use of over 1,3 billion euros in funding. With the System Account on the other hand, which favors the social nature of the disbursement of resources, we have been able to finance complex projects of a sectoral and territorial nature, in particular through the current top Notices of this tool: those of Competitiveness and Innovation. In these fifteen years, over 3.500 plans have been authorized through the Conto di Sistema, for a total loan of over 900 million euro. With the Notices with Additional Contribution, which add up to the resources paid by the members, Fondimpresa finally financed over 50 thousand training plans for over 210 million euros and more than 140 million euros were handled only with those specifically dedicated to SMEs.
“The bet has paid off, the road has been paved – commented Scuotto again -, the system of Funds now constitutes the backbone of the country's continuous training, but a further effort is needed to ensure that the resources managed by the inter-professional Funds increase so that we can continue to stimulate the demand for training in the territories - between companies and through training institutions - and give answers to a country which, according to OECD data, is still ranked in the last places among those who invest in training. After all, it is the OECD itself that says it: to prepare for the challenges of a changing labor market, it is necessary to invest much more in continuous training and the Interprofessional Funds have the potential to give adults the necessary skills to succeed in the labor market and in society".
