As predicted well in advance, the labor market has taken a decisive descent. The Istat data on employment referring to the month of February present a mercilessly bleak picture, without even the chiaroscuro of the previous months.
Government area exegetes flaunt satisfaction with the trend data, i.e. for the last twelve months (+ 113.000 employed, equal to + 0,5%) pretending to forget that employment was growing up until May 2018 (23.327.000 employed ) when this government was not yet in office and that only later, at least so the numbers say, starting from the second half of the year, did it begin to decline. It is a serious mistake to underestimate or ignore the economic data (month on month) which shows, in February 2019, 23.211.000 employed (-0,1% compared to January) but above all the composition of this number of employed persons: -44.000 employees, not even rebalanced by the growth of the self-employed (+30.000). Speaking of the self-employed: an investigation into the Compulsory Communications and the opening of new VAT numbers would be appropriate by crossing the Tax Codes to get an idea of how much the tax advantage measures in favor of the self-employed may have affected these movements.
But the worst is that the 44.000 fewer employees are 33.000 on permanent contracts and 11.000 on temporary contracts: not only do the Government's "expansive" policies not increase employment, but they don't even defend it. And if we can honestly recall that the overall decline in employment can be traced at least in part to an unfavorable economic situation, the same cannot be said of what has been a banner of the Government: the fight against precariousness and stable contracts "by law" which Dignity Decree. Indeed, as expected, it has cracked down on fixed-term contracts, but gave no boost to open-ended contracts. Some illusions had arisen in January, which ended with a +56.000 permanent employment, given that however it was addicted to a predictable phenomenon, which can easily be deduced from the INPS data which record employment flows: in January the new contracts with open-ended contracts there are almost 165.000, but of these 115.000 are transformations of fixed-term contracts, while terminations are 120.000. In other words, the companies have chosen (as usual, for administrative ease) to concentrate in the month of December the transformation into permanent contracts of the fixed terms that they had decided to stabilize. Once the reservoir of fixed-term contracts to be stabilized has dried up, the natural dynamic of hirings-terminations remains, which it is evidently and significantly negative. Moreover, there were 14.851.000 permanent employees in August 2018, the last month that is before the entry into force of the Dignity Decree, they are 14.837.000 in February, after six months of validity of the Decree and fixed-term contracts are identical to the quantity that was in May 2018…
The thing that is most striking, however, is the insistence with which Premier and Deputy Prime Minister refer to the magnificent and progressive fortunes that the entry into force of 100 quota e Basic income which should give a decisive boost to employment.
100 quota recorded around 2019 applications at the end of March 100.000, which should tend to become 300.000 by the end of the year, to which they should be added 40.000 "normal" early pensions and 10.000 "woman option”. Even if only two thirds of the applications were accepted, at the end of the year we would have 250.000 fewer workers (forecasts by the Social Security Itineraries Study Centre). What will be the replacement rate of these retirees?
About 17% are expected to be self-employed (projecting the proportions of the end of March to the end of the year) and it is obvious that they will not be replaced; 30% will be Public Employees who, due to the constraints placed on hiring in the Public Administration, will only be partially replaced; In the end 53% will be employees of private companies: it is useless to hope for significant replacement rates: on the contrary, companies will use the 100 quota to encourage anyone who has the possibility to retire, as an alternative to layoffs and extraordinary redundancy funds, which will be suggested by the negative economic situation. Even if it reached 40% (which is very optimistic!) we would have around 130.000 fewer employees. And, note well, for the most part indefinitely.
But even the Citizenship Income risks becoming an incentive for the termination of employment relationships, as noted Albanian and woodpecker on LaVoce.info: workers with shorter employment contracts, who therefore have not paid the contributions to receive the NASPI, they could be fired because they would be covered by the Citizenship Income. Conversely, it has no credibility as an instrument of employment policies.
One could say that a Caporetto is looming, with the three Prime Ministers in the role of the stubborn Cadorna and his cronies Badoglio and Graziani; let's hope, in the country's interest, that we won't find ourselves defending a new "Piave line" which would make the frantic search for a "new" Diaz inevitable, capable of convincing the country to accept the necessary and effective measures to return to growth and to create jobs.
