Investment in training today has an important return on the employment front: and that's not all graduates are more active in the labor market than graduates, but have a higher share of employed and a lower share of unemployed. The advantage generated by the degree is larger in the Italian average, compared to the two divisions
northerners: if at national level the employment rate goes from 63,7% of high school graduates to 79,2% of university graduates, in the North-West it goes from 71,0% to 83,4% and in the North-East from 72,6. 83,6% to XNUMX%.
This employment success rewards the commitment of Italian families and the younger generations who have chosen to dedicate more years – and resources – to training, bringing the Italian population between 25 and 34 years of age to be better educated than previous generations. In fact, if only 35% of the population between the ages of 64 and 33,9 has a diploma and 16,6% a degree, in the younger age group the data are respectively equal to 42,1% and 27,7% . At the northern level, the increase in the share of graduates in the 25-34 age group is confirmed: 30,6% in the North-West, 31,9% in the North-East, where the human capital absorption capacity is greater of the production system.
Looking at the educational choices, as far as the diploma is concerned, the general preference goes to high school courses, chosen by the majority of new members (56,6% in Italy), even if in Veneto and Emilia-Romagna the figure stops below 48%, leaving more room for technical institutes, opted respectively by 38,3% and the 36,3%, while the national figure is 30,7%. In the two northeastern regions, the option offered by professionals remains even more relevant, albeit declining. In general, in the North where there is still a strong presence of manufacturing, technical education is more attractive to students, as evidenced by the growing, albeit still limited, interest in the ITS experience in these regions.
The growth of tertiary education, however, is still not sufficient to carry the share of graduates in the 25-34 age group at the levels of both the main European countries and the areas that generally constitute the benchmark of the northern regions: if in Veneto the share is equal to 31,9% and in Lombardy it is 33,6%, in Bayern it reaches 46,1% and in Rhône-Alpes 53,5%. Another characteristic of university education is the limited weight of students enrolled in STEM disciplines out of the total: although the overall weight is 25% in Italy and 37,8% in Piedmont, 29,5% in Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Emilia-Romagna.
Italian graduates are in general a lot satisfied with their educational experience and about 90% have a job five years after graduation; in 55,8% of cases (60% in the North) it is a permanent contract, with an average net monthly salary of 1.635 euros (higher in Lombardy and Trentino-Alto Adige: 1.700). However, 30% believe that the degree course followed is not effective in their workplace and 40% declare that they make limited use of the skills acquired.
These data highlight the misalignment between the contents of the chosen university education and the knowledge and skills required by the world of work, as confirmed by the data on horizontal mismatch, estimated by Eurostat: 30,4% of workers carry out a job that is not consistent with the educational qualification obtained. This gap is more relevant for the humanities (58,8%) and smaller for those related to business and law (17,2%), but remains significant for STEM ones (about 40%).
The more you study, the more you work and the less you are left out
The synthetic indices of the labor market - activity rate, employment and unemployment - show how the educational qualification is decisive in defining concrete employment opportunities and guarantees a salary advantage, albeit with territorial and international differences. The data recently published by Almalaurea are explicit on the employment advantage. In particular, the activity rate, i.e. active participation in the labor market (employed and looking for employment), increases in all divisions and in the regions of the North-East as the number of years of training increases, with a significant gap between the diploma and the degree. There are no significant differences between the North-West and the North-East: in the first division, 86,6% of university graduates are active, compared to 75,9% of diploma holders; in the second, 86,4% of university graduates and 76,5% of diploma holders. And the education level of the population, measured on the share of the young population (25-34 years) is higher in the North-East than in the North-West; which implicitly testifies to a high capacity for the absorption of human capital by the production system, although probably not as high as in the other major European countries, where both the level of education and the activity and employment rates are higher.
In relation to the employment rate, i.e. the employed out of the total population of working age (conventionally aged 15-64), investment in training is confirmed as excellent because it gives a high return in terms of greater ease of finding a job in every territorial context.
Finally, the unemployment rate by educational qualification confirms the importance of training in reducing the risk of not finding a job. For Northeastern graduates it is 3,2%, compared to 5,2% for graduates. It is interesting to note that the gap between unemployment rates for those with the lowest job title is 1,6 percentage points between NO and NE (9,1% against 7,5%), while that between unemployment rates for those has the highest educational qualification is 1,2 points, signaling a greater use of less skilled labor in the NE, on the one hand, and a consequent greater ability in the Northeast to ask for work, albeit with lower wages and productivity.
The investment in training of the Italian population is growing
In the light of these reflections, the composition of the population by age based on educational qualifications – which highlights the dynamics of investment in education – provides a positive element. In fact, comparing the level of education of the 25-34 age group with that of the 35-64 age group, a greater proportion of both high school graduates (from 33,9% to 42,1%) and university graduates (from 17,6% to 27,7%) is observed among young people from XNUMX% to XNUMX%). Such increase in the level of training it is also observed in Northern Italy, where the share of graduates between the ages of 25-34 is slightly higher: for graduates from 33,0% to 37,3% in the North-West and from 33,6% to 38,6, 18,3% in the Northeast; for graduates from 30,6% to 18,2% in the NO and from 31,9% to XNUMX% in the NE.
Educational choices: ample space for high schools, enrollments in STEM courses are still limited
In terms of educational choices, the first in-depth study concerns the paths of upper secondary education. The enrollment data confirms this at a national level and in every regional context a preference for high school pathways.
However, in the northern regions, where the presence of the manufacturing sector is stronger, there is a more relevant share of students who choose technical and professional training courses. Although decreasing in the last five years in favor of high schools, the share of enrollments in technical institutes continues to represent 38,3% of the total in Veneto compared to 30,7% nationally. In Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy there is, in contrast to the other areas, a recovery, albeit slight, of those who choose technical education courses; while losing weight everywhere the choice of professional institutions. The fact remains that, crossing the NEETs and the unemployed, many young people who come out of professional institutes do not have an easy integration into the world of work and into society in general and this clashes with the vox populi that qualified workers cannot be found because students prefer non-professional study paths.
The reconciliation between statistical evidence and common opinion passes through the recognition that professional schools mainly address people who have expressed themselves during their studies increased learning difficulties, usually linked to family and social contexts that penalize and demean self-esteem. This diagnosis requires the therapy of a commitment towards greater early involvement of students in the world of work, so as to allow, on the one hand, a familiarization with what they will do when they grow up and a greater awareness of how much work in the factory has transformed; on the other, a chance for personal development before low self-esteem crystallizes into social or occupational exclusion. In this direction, for example, the initiative recently launched in the Upper Vicenza area by Confindustria and Confartigianato, on the initiative of the PD Schio, with the involvement of school principals, goes.
The Higher Technical Institutes (ITS), not so much in comparison between regions, but with other countries, where professional tertiary training has a longer tradition and has a much more significant number of enrolled students, with a very significant impact in some cases on the skills of the younger generations. OECD data show that in Italy only 0,1% of 25-34 year olds have short-cycle tertiary education (ISCED 5)3, compared with much more relevant data in Austria, France and Sweden.
ITS have only been around for a few years – they were in fact established in 2010 – and they matter today 20 thousand subscribers, of which about a fifth in the regions of Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Emilia-Romagna. The monitoring carried out by Indire over the years4 shows a progressive growth in enrollments with significant success rates in terms of employment as regards those leaving these pathways. Which, as the data from the Excelsior Unioncamere survey on recruitment by companies in 2021 show, are difficult to find in almost one out of two cases. However, it is still a training path that is not very widespread and known and it should always be avoided to draw conclusions of spurious causation: those who enter ITS are part of the elite, in terms of motivation and preparation, of technical and professional schools.
Finally, although as seen the investment in training constitutes a favorable factor for accessing the labor market and reducing the difficulties in finding a job, Italy - and the North-East and the North-West are no exception - presents a low level of participation in tertiary education compared to other European countries, albeit in progressive growth. At the EU27 level, the figure for graduates in the 25-34 age group reaches 40,5%, while in our country it stops at 28,5% and, instead, rises to 49,4% in France and 35,1%, 2% in Germany (where most students are denied access to university). In the regional context (Figure 31,9), Veneto stops at 33,9%, Emilia-Romagna is at 33,6%, Lombardy 53,5%, while the traditional benchmark areas in Europe, such as Rhône Alpes and Bayern record data equal to 46,1% and XNUMX% respectively.
As for the choice of university, the focus on STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), considered indispensable today both to accompany the technological and digital transformation of companies, and as a crucial element in increasingly digitized daily life, in knowing how to understand and face the challenges that a complex context poses to everyone, in knowing how to read the present with the criteria of science and the scientific method, in organizing one's personal journey, still registers a low presence of students enrolled in university courses in this area, although the dynamics of enrollments between 2012 and 2019 show a more significant growth in these subjects than in the university offer as a whole.
The national data remains limited (less than 25% of the total); while at the regional level, the north-eastern area together with that of the north-west presents the highest values in the Italian context: in particular, in Piedmont (37,6%), in Emilia-Romagna and Friuli-Venezia Giulia (29,5 %) and in Lombardy (28,5%). While Veneto (26,3%) and Trentino-Alto Adige (28,3%) lag behind the other regions of the North.
It should be emphasized that the number of students enrolled does not only depend on the propensity of the students but also on thetraining offer of universities, where paradoxes are registered. The case of a university where 2000 young people would have liked to enroll in the artificial intelligence course, but there were only 100 places available, is emblematic, when the educational offer in political science was 300 enrollments.
Graduates satisfied with their path but….
Regardless of the university path chosen, nine out of ten graduates declare themselves overall satisfied with the experience. The data taken from the recent Report drawn up by Almalaurea also certify that tertiary training in the regions considered allows for high employability starting from the first year after graduation, so much so that the employment rate is everywhere close to 80% (i.e. four out of five work). The national figure one year after graduation stops at 74,6% (three out of four) to reach 88,5% after 5 years. The figure is close to 90% in all the northern regions examined, with peaks exceeding 93% in Lombardy, Trentino-Alto Adige and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Just under 90% the figure in Emilia-Romagna. Intermediate data in Veneto (90,4%).
In terms of wages there are some territorial differences: Veneto with 1635 euros net per month, equal to the Italian average, records the lowest salary among the regions of the North, where the highest values are present in Trentino-Alto Adige (1700) and Lombardy (1702 ). In Emilia-Romagna the salary is 1635 euros and in Friuli-Venezia Giulia 1.671.
Everywhere, 6 out of 10 employed graduates have a permanent contract five years after graduation.
In the face of many elements of satisfaction with university courses, evaluations regarding the effectiveness of the degree and the degree of use of the skills acquired in training in the context of one's work must be made. Five years after graduation, only 70% of graduates are employed very effective or effective the degree and only about 60% declare that they make extensive use of the acquired skills. It therefore means that a share of 30% judges, conversely, their own training as not effective, the skills of which in 40% of cases are not used to a particularly important extent in the workplace. The first opinion contrasts with the fact that, thanks to a degree, young people are employed and with a higher salary than their non-graduated peers, while the second has to do with the mismatch between the training path chosen and the demand for skills by businesses. Furthermore, the degree equips young people with a higher aptitude for change and with a greater capacity for learning through study. Both precious qualities in a rapidly evolving world that requires a continuous adaptation of knowledge.
… degrees are not all the same
This critical element is confirmed by the experimental statistics produced by Eurostat to measure the horizontal skills mismatch, i.e. the one referring to the skills possessed, obtained by calculating the share of employees who perform profession in a different field compared to the educational background of their highest educational qualification. In Italy, the percentage of non-congruence of skills with respect to the work performed is equal to 30,4% if referred to the complex of tertiary training. However, observing the data with respect to the various disciplines, the mismatch is particularly high for those with a background in Agriculture and Livestock (61,3%) and in the humanities (58,8%), while it tends to decrease in the other scientific disciplines and even more so in the social sciences (economics), law, business and healthcare.
The data points to the recruitment problems by field of study in the field of tertiary education, raises some questions about the consistency between skills sought by the business system and skills acquired at university. Compared to STEM disciplines, for example, although entrepreneurs complain about the lack of candidates with them in the recruitment phase for over 54% of the personnel searches carried out, those who then possess these skills register a misalignment between the knowledge acquired and that required in the work performance. This difficulty is even more felt in the North-East regions: here mathematical, engineering, scientific and technological skills are the most difficult to find in more than 60% of cases, with a peak of 74,2% for electronic engineering and information. On the opposite side, the skills acquired in the humanistic, legal and psychological fields, which are easily available.
