The more skilled they are, the less they work. And above all, they earn less and less. It is the rather bleak picture that emerges from the study on the employment condition of Italian graduates conducted and presented today by Almalaurea.
The picture of a country in crisis is valid both for recent graduates (from 2007 onwards), for which the unemployment rate grew by 8 percentage points, reaching 19,4% for students who obtained the title in 2010, and for those who graduated between 2000 and 2002, that is, he entered the world of work about 10 years ago. If it is true that 88% of them have a job, it is also true that the net monthly salary does not exceed, on average, 1.620 euros, with some sectors, such as architecture, literature and teaching, which drop well below 1.400.
It's no better than the class of 2006, that is five-year workers, who saw their wages fall by 17% compared to the aforementioned colleagues (1.250 euros per month, -8% in the last year alone) and their unemployment rate to rise by 3 percentage points.
But the most worrying data, and more in contrast with the European average, is that on highly skilled work. Which, although it is rightly the best paid (doctors and engineers in the lead, with an average of over 2 thousand euros net per month among "ten-year" workers), sees its share of employed people contract, while in the rest of Europe the decline in employment has been accompanied by an increase in more qualified professions. In the Netherlands and Great Britain, for example, almost one in three workers is a "brain", compared to the 28% recorded in London in 2004. The EU average is 22%, the same value as in France, while even Spain has gone from 19 to 21,8% from 2008 to 2010. In Italy, on the other hand, only 17% of workers are highly qualified, while 8 years ago they were 19%.
Not to mention, then, that in Italy, compared to other countries, young people are few and still poorly trained: only 20 graduates for every hundred young people aged between 25 and 34, against the average of 37 OECD countries (while in Germany they are 26 per cent, in the United States 41, in France 43, in the United Kingdom 45, in Japan 56). Precisely because young people with university preparation make up a modest share in our country, they should be more attractive for the domestic job market. Instead the opposite happens and, as far as high qualification is concerned, they are increasingly likely to go abroad, where there is more demand and they are better paid.
This brain drain, again according to Almalaurea's analysis, has distant roots in the scarce investments in education, research and development. Among the 31 OECD countries considered, Italian funding, public and private, in university education is higher only than that of the Slovak Republic and Hungary (Italy allocates 1% of its GDP, against 1,2 for Germany and the United Kingdom, 1,4 for France and 2,7 for the United States). Nor are things going better in the strategic sector of research and development: in 2009, our country allocated 1,26% of its GDP to it, thus making it last among the most advanced European states (Sweden 3,62%, Germany 2,82%, France 2,21%, United Kingdom 1,87%). In a sector like this, crucial for the possibility of competing at an international level, the contribution from the business world is also weak. In Italy the contribution of the entrepreneurial world is equal to 0,67% of the GDP, just over half of the total investment, much less than what occurs in the more advanced countries.
Finally, the disparities. Ancestral - and confirmed by the data - that between North and South: the employment of northern graduates in 2010 was 17% higher than that of their colleagues in the South, who also earned an average of 16,9% less. And then, on the eve of 8 March, women: even if the gap between men's and women's wages is among the lowest compared to the EU average, Italy is lagging behind in terms of female employment. Both in general and, specifically in the Almalaurea study, among graduates one year after graduation (with a two-year specialization): just over one in two women works (54%, 61% men), and only 31% of them have stable employment (37% men).
The picture therefore emerges from Almalaurea's analysis of a country which does not invest in training and young people, and which does not yet guarantee working conditions (economic and contractual) at the level of other advanced countries. It is not a country for young people, it would be trivial and obvious to comment. But there's more here: in addition to women and those born from Rome downwards, not even the best find space in this country. Indeed, it is above all the fastest and most qualified graduates, with all due respect to Undersecretary Michel Martone, who are penalized. The question is: what future can a country have that mortifies its excellence?
