LAMEZIA TERME In the aftermath of President Sergio Mattarella’s visit, Calabria once again finds itself celebrating that right – on paper – constitutionally guaranteed which essentially does not exist in the region: the right to have a real job. With real protections and able to guarantee a decent wage. As the May Day celebration for Calabria it acquires the flavor of disillusionment if not downright mockery. Undeclared work, low wages and unemployment characterize that planet called employment which in this part of the Italian territory always struggles to become a widespread right.
An axiom that becomes even more evident if you have the misfortune of being born a woman or are very young. And it is the reason for that unstoppable exodus especially of young and brilliant minds towards territories outside the regional borders. In search of that right to work which is in fact denied and which turns into the deprivation of personal dignity and the ability to plan a future worthy of the name in the land where one was born. This is why Mattarella’s words in Castrovillari are also decidedly meaningful in Calabria: «Work is freedom. First of all, freedom from need; and a tool to express oneself, to realize oneself in life.”
A freedom which, according to the merciless data coming from the various statistical reports, certainly cannot be said to be the conquest of the Calabrians. And in this deprivation of that right which becomes the absence of freedom to build a future, there is the still unwon challenge of offering a possibility of redemption not only to the individual. But to an entire community that bases any hypothesis of future development on work.
The defeat in numbers
Reviewing the data provided by Istat, the defeat that active policies to develop employment in Calabria have so far recorded, despite the influx of mainly European resources, clearly emerges. From the low percentage of employed people, to those who don’t even have a job, to end with the rate of those who – disillusioned – don’t even look for one, he perfectly outlines the contours of this defeat.
Then in the background those phenomena as hateful as they are distant from the vision of a State that can be defined as civil. The army of ghosts of work and those who are forced to accept any conditions in order to bring home a salary.
Calabria – from this last point of view – continues to hold the very sad record of irregular workers: nineteen out of one hundred employed people are in this condition.
A dramatic fact which therefore becomes the most significant emblem of the state of deprivation of rights in which one is forced to live in a region where work is rarefied.
Going into the detail of the findings contained in the latest report “Equal and sustainable well-being” published a few days ago by Istat, Calabria lies at the bottom of the national rankings on various indicators in terms of employment.
In addition to the widespread presence of irregular work, the region results last for employment rate. Together with Campania, less than half of Calabrians in the age group between 20 and 64 (i.e. in the age group in which one is active) – during 2023 – had a job: 48.4% to be precise. In Italy that average rises to 66.3%, but if we look at the data from some areas of the country that index grows even more. In the North-East the rate of people working rises to 73.8%. This shows how measurable the territorial gap we talk about so much is and shows how Calabria is struggling to keep up.
But not only that, Calabria is also last for that phenomenon that analysts define as “poor work”. Approximately two out of ten workers have a salary below the national average and which demonstrates how current the issue of the minimum wage, rejected by the Government, is in this region.
Gaps that become enormous gaps when the unemployment data is analyzed. TO at the end of 2023, 102 thousand people were unemployed. A figure that translates into a rate of unemployed equal to 16%, well over double the national average (7.7%) and far from a region where the percentage of unemployed drops dramatically. See Trentino Alto Adige (2.8%) or Valle d’Aosta and Lombardy (4%). Only Campania is worse than Calabria, where the unemployment rate is 17.4%. A race to the bottom of territories where the right to work remains an option.
Women and young people more penalized
And those data get worse when compared to sex and age. Taking the data provided by Istat as a sample, it emerges that the unemployment rate among women in December 2023 rises to 19% against 14% for men. A figure second only to Campania where women who do not work reach 20%.
But light years away from the national average which stands at 8.8%. Consequently, the data on how many women work is disastrous.
In Calabria less than a third have a job (32.6% to be precise) which is decidedly far from the average in other areas of the country. Not necessarily among the richest regions. For example, in the Marche region, over 6 out of 10 women work.
Not to mention that there are places like Valle d’Aosta or Trentino where that rate is close to 70%.
Here too, demonstrating that enormous disparity in rights which thus also becomes a gender gap.
A gap that pushes the women more than men are discouraged when looking for work. If it is true that 6 out of ten women in Calabria, despite not being employed, don’t even look for it. Numbers that indicate how limited the freedom of Calabrian women to participate in the economic growth of the region is.
The employment picture is no better in terms of those who should enter the world of work. Given that the youth unemployment rate in Calabria it is skyrocketing: over three out of ten young people aged between 15 and 29 are unemployed, in Italy the rate drops to 18% and in the North to 11.4%. Denials, we were saying, of rights that become chasms of freedom and the possibility of fulfillment in the region. Hence the hemorrhage of young people who run away in search of a future elsewhere. The data in this respect are merciless. In ten years, the age group between 18 and 39 – which we remember is the most important in terms of productivity and development of the future potential of the region – has recorded a decidedly significant increase in transfers outside the regional borders. Almost a quarter of young people literally packed their bags and fled the region.
Work casualization and the Neet army
To paint a decidedly gloomy picture of the world of work (which does not exist) in Calabria there are also data on the level of precariousness and how many young people make up the NEET army. And so from reading the Istat report, it emerges that over a quarter of workers in Calabria are precarious for at least 5 years. In Italy the average is 18%.
Still on the front of precariousness, it turns out that the region has the lowest percentage of transformations of employment relationships from unstable to permanent in Italy. In a two-year period, just 9.2% of those contracts changed their skin, guaranteeing continuity. Less than half the national average which is 22.4%. A fact that says a lot about the ephemerality of employment in the region.
This framework characterized by illegal work, precariousness and pressing youth unemployment, ends up demotivating young people on the one hand from looking for a job but also from not qualify to increase your chances. And this is how the high percentage of young people no longer included in a school/training path and not engaged in a working activity (the so-called Neet). In 2023, 27.2% of young people between 15 and 29 years old find themselves in this limbo. This is also a very serious figure if we consider that the national average drops to 16.1% but above all that Calabria is among the regions with the least skills among the very young both on the digital, numerical and alphabetical front. And it is among the regions that records the highest school dropout rate: 11.8%. With these indicators, the possibility that young people leave the job market and are then unable to enter it becomes a serious threat to the future. Consequently jeopardizing the fate of an entire region. Thus celebrating May 1st in Calabria becomes a pure exercise in rhetoric, and nothing more. ([email protected])
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