Intesa Sanpaolo presented the Youth and Work project in Milan, designed for favoring the access of young people between 18 and 29 to the world of work and therefore to bridge the skills mismatch between supply and demand in the labor market. The program, aimed at training in Italy approx 5.000 young people by 2021 in areas for which the needs of companies have emerged stronger than for trained personnel to be hired, i.e. the IT, restaurant/hotel and sales sectors, was illustrated during the round table by Paolo Bonassi, Executive Director Strategic Support of Intesa Sanpaolo, Gianluigi Venturini, Regional Director of Milan and the province of Intesa Sanpaolo and by Oscar Pasquali, Country manager Generation Italy in the presence of some companies involved in the project including: Gianluca Berghella, President and CEO Armundia Group, Fausto Caravello, HR Manager Kasanova, Caterina Magni, Partner Libraccio, Alessandro Malacart, CFO Digital Magics and David Ranucci, Founder and Partner Giulio Pane e Ojo (Rugantino).
For young people the program offers free training aimed at developing technical skills, attitudinal and behavioral (soft skills). To Giovani e Lavoro companies it guarantees a pool of people trained according to their needs. To date, out of more than 9.300 young applicants to the Program, more than 700 students have been placed in the classroom, with an 80% recruitment rate for the first students to graduate. More than 1.000 companies are involved through local meetings. All project costs, including those for identifying candidates and providing training courses, are fully covered by Intesa Sanpaolo, making their use totally free for both participants and companies interested in potential hires.
“With this project, the Group is tackling the problem of youth unemployment – he commented Gianluigi Venturini, Regional Director of Milan and province of Intesa Sanpaolo – offering young people the professional tools necessary to access the job market and, at the same time, guaranteeing trained personnel to companies. Since the start of the project, 15 companies have already started hiring programs in Milan. Initiatives like this are fully part of the Group's support strategy for young people for whom we have launched various projects. Among these Z Lab, aimed at secondary schools to offer students of high schools and technical/professional institutes a three-year learning and experimentation program within Intesa Sanpaolo. Furthermore, we have disbursed over 170 million euros to finance the university studies of 15.000 students and, thanks to the 'Per Merito' unsecured loan, 3.240 students in Italy received funding in one year and, of these, the 13% are in Lombardy”.
Compared to approx 1,3 million young Italians unemployed, around 731 positions are open on the labor market, the profiles of which are difficult for companies to find. 30% of unemployed young people are concentrated in six Italian provinces: Naples, Rome, Bari, Palermo, Milan, Turin (Source: Istat). 17% of the positions requested by companies are difficult to fill, especially for roles and professionalism in the hospitality/catering, retail/sales and digital/ICT sectors (Source: Unioncamere). Intesa Sanpaolo's Youth and Work project brings together three fundamental elements: youth unemployment, the geographical areas where it is highest and the demand for already trained personnel by businesses.
The project is carried out by Intesa Sanpaolo through Intesa Sanpaolo Formazione, the Group company that designs, organizes, manages and coordinates education, training and professional development programs and takes place in collaboration with Generation Italy, the global non-profit initiative created by McKinsey & Company in 2015 with the aim of contributing to reduce the phenomenon of youth unemployment (https://www.generation.org/italy). In three years, Generation has graduated and accompanied more than 26.000 students from 100 cities in 11 countries around the world to work. In Italy, the second European country after Spain, Generation started its activities in 2018 through a non-profit foundation and launched the first training programs in retail and software development.
