The data released in recent days by various national and international bodies, such as Eurostat, Istat, Centro Studi Confindustria, remind us, taken as a whole, that since the beginning of the crisis: we have lost 9 points of GDP (or 35 points if we exclude the government contribution), industrial production fell by 25 per cent and among the manufacturing countries we were overtaken by Brazil and India, disposable income fell by more than 11 points in real terms, the general unemployment rate is now at 13,6 46 percent and that of young people exceeded 20 percent, with female employment among the lowest in Europe, XNUMX percentage points less than Germany. Entire production sectors are in crisis or have greatly reduced, from electronics to iron and steel, from automotive to textiles, from leather goods to wood, just to name a few.
At the same time, while public investment expenditure has collapsed, the current one, the true independent variable, has continued to grow! We are the country where companies are subject to the highest taxes in Europe, justice is the slowest, electricity and gas are the most expensive, bureaucracy is the most convoluted. Added to the list of inefficiencies is the lack of digitization of the country and infrastructures among the worst in Europe, not to mention tax evasion and systemic corruption (Milan Expo and Venice Mose are the most recent cases). We are facing a drama that seems unstoppable: precariousness and impoverishment are flooding the most varied sectors, drowning professionalism at all levels, from blue-collar workers to white-collar workers, from professionals to executives, while those outside the labor market do not see the slightest hope to become part of it.
With these unsustainable levels of unemployed young people, we will see new waves of emigration, as our country already experienced at the beginning of the twentieth century towards the Americas or towards Switzerland and Germany in the XNUMXs. Except that now not arms will emigrate to the countries of Northern Europe or North America, given the competition from other desperate people in the world, but "young brains", which our universities fortunately still manage to train. For many years the lack of economic growth has not produced new jobs. Our labor market, even before the crisis, was a mere generational replacement market.
Retirement pensions at 55 or early retirement at 50, not to mention baby pensions at 19, 6 months and 1 day of contributions if not even less, long-term mobility of 7/10 years linked to the pension, the permanent redundancy fund, have made it possible to manage a generational turnover with an exchange between the facilitated departures of senior staff (or rather no longer young!) partially compensated, in the majority of cases, by the hiring of young people.
A practice that has avoided the risk of intergenerational conflicts, guaranteeing social cohesion, at least up to now, but it has cost the state coffers enormously: that is, all of us. the significant impact of pension expenditure of over 250 billion on total expenditure of approximately 800 billion. Basically, as noted by Istat, we are a rapidly aging country, with many unemployed and without generational turnover. We must all understand that we are in a phase of historical discontinuity. The times we live in, and the problems we have to face, require us to choose between breaking established patterns and keeping up with the rest of the world or reassuring ourselves from leaving everything as it is, comforted by the illusion that sooner or later we will recover .
The choice is between "rolling up your sleeves" and having the courage to change or to defend the status quo, which for the last 20/30 years has led us to a slow and unstoppable decline. And if we are unable to reform all the brake factors that have long compressed the country's competitiveness, including the labor factor, it will be very difficult to hope for an economic recovery that can create new jobs. In this sense, it is to be hoped that the Government's jobs act (even if to date only the Poletti Decree is law, while for the other reforms, in particular of the social safety nets and the contract with increasing protection, only the guidelines are known) will succeed really to create a different relationship between companies and workers, helping to build that more favorable environment for those who want to start or expand an economic activity.
But the rules alone are not enough if companies, at least the big ones, withdraw into themselves and don't transform the current phase of crisis into an opportunity to identify valuable young people in whom to invest for the future and give them job prospects. The “Employability 2.0” project fits into this national framework of work, as illustrated by Ilaria Dalla Riva, the head of Human Resources, Organization and Communication of Banca Monte dei Paschi, at the ABI HR Forum held recently in Rome. "Employability 2.0" is a project by Elis (the Consortium for higher professional training) which aims to answer the question of what companies can do to intercept the flow of young talents who are increasingly condemned to emigrate or to precariousness, and was launched at The beginning of 2012 under the six-monthly Presidency of Ilaria Dalla Riva, in the role at the time of Personnel Manager of SkyTV.
The project, which once the experimental phase is over, will have its definitive kick off in a few days, allows the placement of young graduates in companies associated with Elis through a tool, unique in Europe, which allows companies to reconcile flexibility with security and training for young people. An essential point of the project is a path based on job rotation and investment in training. The aim is to facilitate companies and young people in meeting supply and demand through a process aimed at capitalizing on the experience of the participants in the first year with a view to professional growth, and added value for companies in the second year .
The program features:
Company rotation: two paid professional experiences of one year each in two large Italian and international companies in different sectors (the contractual form used is the administration contract, as there is currently no contractual type available for this co-ownership of the employment relationship specific).
Training: is divided into two packages. One for pre-entry, aimed at learning the skills necessary to enter the company, and the other for post-entry, which provides for the alternation between general management topics and specialist training in the Operations, ICT, Mktg & Sales fields.
Mentoring: support for personal and professional development through reference figures in the company who transfer knowledge and expertise to young people.
At the end of the two years, the young man receives a job offer from one of the two companies where he lived his experience. To date, about twenty companies have been involved in the project and about a hundred young people have been sent to work. This completely "innovative" project has therefore made it possible to create, through the Elis Consortium, a pool of companies from different sectors that can share people who mature different experiences and cultures, developing with their inclusion an up-grade of the corporate culture and continuous innovation. In this way, the final result will be to communicate a new work culture: yesterday companies were asked for the "certainty" of employment, today we must ask for "employability", i.e. training combined with work experience that makes people constantly attractive on the job market.
