From the analysis by CRESA (Study Center of the Development Agency of the Gran Sasso d’Italia Chamber of Commerce) of the data of the most recent annual survey conducted by the Excelsior Information System created by Unioncamere and ANPAL, the persistence of pandemic phase of enormous difficulty for companies to find a workforce with the required characteristics.
For this reason, falling unemployment rates and increasing job vacancies do not lead to economic growth but have a high probability of simply resulting in higher inflation. In fact, there was no recovery and reactivation of the job offer dropped during the pandemic mainly due to structural change factors that could influence the trends of the coming years.
Excelsior data showsdespite the economic slowdown, a growing trend in current employment strategies: expected earnings in Italy exceed 5.5 million, approximately one million more than in 2018 (+4%), in Abruzzo they are close to 117 thousand17 thousand more compared to the pre-pandemic year (+3%) with significant sectoral differences: compared to 2018, 2023 in the region records an increase of 17 thousand units requested, almost 10 thousand of which in tourist services, for the need to replenish the workforce left empty due to the pandemic, and just under 4 thousand both in construction, supported by economic policy interventions, and in personal services. Generalized declines are observed in manufacturing and, within the tertiary sector, in financial services and “other business services”. Since construction and tourist services have a strong impact on fixed-term contracts or in any case on more frequent interruptions of employment relationships, the increase in expected revenue is almost exclusively due to the hiring of fixed-term employees (+24 thousand), to a modest increase in those on call and, contrary to what happens at a national level, the decline, albeit more limited, in the expected hiring of permanent staff (-2 thousand units).
In Abruzzo the expansion of job demand concerns 50% of those under 29 (+7 thousand), 21% no qualification is required, 29% are looking for figures with at least a five-year diploma, 42% % people with a professional training qualification and 8% at least graduates. (16% nationally).
The difficulties in finding a job offer are enormous, mainly but not only in construction and manufacturing, capable of satisfying needs: 47% of the 116.7 thousand planned entries are judged by Abruzzo companies to be “difficult to find” (it was 26% in 2018) both due to the absence of professionalism requests (30%) and for negative outcomes in candidate selection processes. To overcome them, companies adopt different strategies: they look for similar professional figures to train them internally, they broaden the territorial scope of the search, they propose higher salaries (18% was 13% in 2019).
The Excelsior system also provides an estimate of medium-term employment needs given by the sum of expansion (economic trend) and replacement demand (replacement of workers leaving mainly due to retirement or mortality): for the period 2023-2027 in Italy they are almost 4 million , in Abruzzo 68 thousand units.
Expansion demand, increasing following the increase in the “health supply chain” for demographic reasons and the growing technological needs of businesses, is expected to grow in Italy between 2023 and 2027 by 1 million employed, by 11.9 thousand in Abruzzo which corresponds to a rate of 0.5% higher than in Liguria and Basilicata alone.
For replacement demand, over 2.7 million hirings are estimated at a national level and 56.2 thousand in Abruzzo for the five-year period 2023-2027, equal to 82% in Italy and 72% of the total requirement in Abruzzo with very diversified shares in the different sectors of economic activity.
Compared to the European scenario, Italy presents at least 3 peculiarities that make it more fragile: demographic decline, different sectoral trends due to the strong support given to construction, reduction in real terms of wages. Timely migration policies will be needed to encourage the entry of a qualified workforce, and active labor policies to increase participation in the labor market, together with welfare measures that facilitate female and youth employment.
The full document in pdf version is available at https://agenziasviluppoaq.eu/temi-e-problemi-n-1-2024/
Tags: Abruzzo lack workforce businesses
