The OECD forecasts for Italy “are in line with the assessments of the January forecast report and appear even more cautious: thanks to the favorable evolution of oil and exchange rates, associated with the ECB's QE, Prometeia predicts that the Italian economy will emerge from three years of recession and it will start to grow again, with an acceleration that will already bring it to 1,4%” in the fourth quarter at the end of the year. This was stated by Stefania Tomasini, head of analysis and forecasts on the Italian economy of Prometeia, commenting the OECD data released yesterday.
“Equally shareable – he added – is the positive opinion on the Jobs Act and, in particular, on the introduction of the contract with increasing protections, the effective impact of which can however be fully assessed only once the approval process of the delegated decrees has been completed. However, it can be assumed that from March new hires will be facilitated by greater flexibility in leaving. Furthermore, permanent hires will benefit from the contribution relief provided for by the Stability Law. Hiring will therefore be able to receive a positive boost and thus increase the elasticity of employment to economic recovery”.
According to Tomasini, “however, there are also some critical aspects that must be remembered: to date, types of contract have not been abolished, nor significantly reduced, behind which forms of dependent work have often been masked. In this context, only if the recovery starts with sufficient vigor and positively influences the expectations of companies will the existing incentives be able to decisively shift hiring towards permanent contracts and truly reduce the high degree of segmentation which is a negative feature of the our job market. Otherwise, the risk is that the Jobs Act will add, in the short term, precariousness to a job market that is already very precarious”.
