The work world is a critical hurdle in confronting many of the social dilemmas facing the country. Growing inequalities concern not only workers who have lost their jobs but also those who, despite having an income, still struggle to balance the family budget. The challenge is one that involves citizens, institutions, the educational system, businesses and the tertiary sector.
Inclusion thus becomes one of the goals on which to focus, not only with a view to increasing social cohesion but also, in light of Italy’s problematic demographic scenario, to avoid wasting human capital. The aim must be to optimize existing skills, eliminating those persistent impediments to diversity in the workplace and to achieving equality of treatment. Likewise, it is important to increase the Italian economic fabric’s appeal to international talent by striving to retain expertise or at least allowing it to circulate it in such a way as to avoid losing qualified young workers altogether.
This is the key to providing human resources with the motivation needed to grow and to ensure that businesses grow. In addition to the promotion and acknowledgement of merit and talent, fundamental for the new generations is to provide work environments that offer high levels of commitment and social impact. Participation in inclusion projects (in collaboration with the tertiary sector) can offer companies and their workers a sense of purpose that strengthens the organization as a whole.
Technologies surely play a pivotal – albeit at times contradictory – role in this scenario. Indeed, while reinforcing digital skills remains one of the main pathways to the employability and inclusion of even society’s most vulnerable segments, the rapid spread and evolution of many technologies also contributes to creating gaps that have swift and decisive effects on the job market.
Countering those effects and ensuring that technological innovation fosters collective prosperity calls for a united effort toward placing the educational system, all the way through the university level, in dialogue with the work world and the tertiary sector. The goal must be to develop – not least through continuous learning – an ongoing encounter capable of addressing the “mismatch” between the skills new job market entries come prepared to offer and those required by key sectors of the national economy.