07 May The Lost Generation: Italian youth unemployment at record high
Youth unemployment in Italy has reached a new high, statistics show today
1 April 2014
More young people than ever before are out of work in Italy. Credit: J Heming
Youth unemployment in February was 42.3%, a climb of 3.6% since last February and close to the country’s highest level in 37 years.
Italy has seen a boom in unemployment since 2007. Credit: J Heming/Infogr.am. View the extended story in visual format here.
With over 372,000 firms closing in Italy last year, the percentage of 15- to 24-year-olds out of work is over double that in the UK.
90% of young people in Italy are offered temporary contracts, which render them vulnerable to dismissal after a short period.
Adult unemployment in Italy similarly rose in February compared to last year but by a lesser margin, 1.2%. A record 3.3 million adults (13%) are now out of work, yet this figure represents just half the number of young jobless.
New Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has pledged to make cutting unemployment a top priority. He will incentivize employers to take on young people by addressing the complicated contracts that deter businesses from hiring, and by introducing a Jobs Act that will lower labour costs.
Renzi has pledged to cut the red tape that prohibits employers hiring the young. Credit: J Heming
Renzi faces the challenge of gaining the trust and enthusiasm of a youth population that has become largely disheartened after years of hardship and perceived governmental incompetence.
The youth unemployment problem in Italy is triggered partly by economic downturn- a 9% decline since 2008-whereby businesses have stopped hiring, and partly by the fact that Italian youths are not leaving education with mandatory workplace skills. Almost half of Italian employers said low skills among entry-level employees had caused problems for their business.
Dr Chris Winch, Education Policy expert at the University of London, explains that many European universities “have demand-driven systems, offering degrees where they can fill places…whether they lead to employment is another question.” Winch says that frequently degrees are not aligned with the skill-needs of the economy, meaning that there aren’t caps on subjects that aren’t needed.
“Universities offer degrees where they can fill places…whether they lead to employment is another question”
Many young Italians pursue degrees in fields such as Humanities, where jobs do not exist. Additionally, a lack of vocational training and internship opportunities means that graduates tend to lack desirable practical experience. Spencer Thompson, economic analyst at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), says: “We have found that young people who work during their studies have a greater chance of finding work afterwards.”
“We have found that young people who work during their studies have a greater chance of finding work afterwards”
The Italian government is introducing apprenticeships and asking universities to offer internships as part of an education reform aiming to improve young people’s employability.
A study by McKinsey management consultants, released in January, revealed Italy’s mismatch between education and employer demands to be a problem affecting multiple European nations.
Video Report: European graduates face psychological beating after universities fail to equip them for world of work
Youth Unemployment rises across Europe
Although the increase in youth unemployment is most marked in Italy, in almost half of the countries recorded by Eurostat: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland and Finland, Youth Unemployment in February 2014 was higher than a year ago.
Young people are barred from the labour market. Credit: J Heming
The overall EU youth unemployment rate in February was over double that for adults, showing young people’s exclusion from the labour market to be a persistent problem.
In Denmark, Austria and Poland adult unemployment fell whilst youth unemployment rose, implying employers’ aversion to taking on the young.
The European Commission (EC) is addressing the discrepancy between overall and youth unemployment by helping European countries to implement national Youth Guarantee programmes. Member nations must set out plans to enhance stakeholder relations and to enforce education/training reform, in order to ensure that all young people under 25 receive a good-quality, secure job offer within four months of them leaving education or becoming unemployed.
Youth Employment Progress in Portugal and Spain
The Southern-European belt; Italy, Greece, Spain, Croatia and Portugal, denotes the nadir of the EU when it comes to Youth Unemployment. Youth prospects in these countries are particularly impaired due to pronounced financial difficulty and cutbacks.
Credit: J Heming. Data source: Eurostat
After Greece, Spain and Italy respectively, Portugal has the highest youth unemployment rate in Europe. Notably however, in February youth unemployment in Portugal plummeted by a significant 5.6% on the previous year (Spain’s figure fell by a lesser 2.2%).
The Southern European economies may be starting to recover, but ironically, employers may face difficulty in filling positions given that a significant number of young people from Southern Europe have migrated to countries with more favorable labour markets, like Germany and the UK.
Germany: A transferable youth-employment model?
Germany is an anomalous spark in the bleak European youth unemployment picture. The latest figures show that youth unemployment was 7.7% in February: down 0.1% from last year and only marginally higher than adult unemployment (5.1%). The German youth unemployment figure represents less than a quarter of the rates in more severely affected countries. Why, then, is the German labour market thriving, whilst young people in Southern Europe find it painfully impossible to secure employment?
Audio Report: Can Europe mirror Germany’s success?
Related
- Youth Apprenticeships: The government has ‘fiddled the figures’, Judge Jess, 3 May 2014
- Italian Leader’s Job Push focuses on Youth, WSJ, 3 April 2014
- Work Programme needs more work, 4 News, 12 March 2014
- German school leavers spurn apprenticeships, Financial Times, 5 February 2014
- Over 200,000 on failing work programme return to job centre, IB Times, December 19 2013
- Bad management and cruelty: Iain Duncan Smith and the failures of the Work Programme, New Statesman, 13 November 2013
- £5bn Work programme is worse than doing nothing, Telegraph, 27 June 2013
- German Apprenticeships: a model for Europe? BBC, 14 December 2011
- Young and Unemployed, You’re hired: in Germany, BBC, 20 July 2011
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