Competitiveness and Italy’s job market
Kick-starting proceedings at this national roundtable event was recognition that debate on the state of the labor market in Italy and reflection on how the country measures up with conditions and models in other countries (Germany and the Netherlands in particular) are now more than ever imperative, at a time when the jobless rate is higher than the EU average (and is, indeed, the highest for youth unemployment), and when manufacturing output and consumer prices are in decline.
Generation Y and the employment challenge
At this event to discuss the latest issue of the Aspenia journal, it was observed that growth and jobs figures continue to deliver an undeniably worrying outlook for Europe, and Italy in particular. The Italian economy is still losing jobs, especially positions for young people, while the recovery is set to be slow (and uneven as between different parts of the country), with the expected increase in job opportunities falling below GDP growth.
The labor market, competitiveness and human capital
The participants at this National Conference noted that for decades the relationship between labor and capital in Italy seems to have swung periodically between the antitheses of cooperation and conflict – of subscribing to a shared mission and engaging in confrontation as a matter of principle. Ranged on one side has been a notion which views a business as a community of men and women intent on achieving shared objectives, and on the other has been a more class-conscious approach, grounded in the competing interests of all the various actors in the labor market.