From the musician to the biotechnologist: there are many dreams of a professional outlet that hundreds of students from high schools and the university of Messina told today in Piazza Duomo to the counselors of “Work travels with us”, organized by the National Foundation for employment consultants with the Order of Labor Consultants of Messina and the Municipality of Messina.
After receiving general information and completing a specific questionnaire, the students discussed their studies with experts, obtaining advice on how best to address the real needs of businesses which, in 42.7% of cases, fail to to find qualified candidates for the proposed professional figures.
Matching supply and demand
“The real problem – explained Vincenzo Silvestri, national president of the Employment Consultants Foundation – is that of being able to match supply and demand for work. The education and training system is still far away and an additional in-depth tool is needed that directly involves businesses, and this is what the Employment Consultants Foundation does as a private agency recognized by the ministry, putting initiatives like this into practice. We left Naples a month ago and after 18 stops around Italy we helped 6 thousand young people find work, and I can say that the Messina square, which closed the initiative, was among the best for collaboration of the institutions local and for the participation and interest of young people. This is why we will come back here.” So much so that the mayor, Federico Basile, has nominated Messina to host the next edition of “Work travels with us”.
Train young people
On the part of the companies, Roberto Franchina, president of the Small Industry of Sicindustria, announced: “We will shortly launch an Academy that is able to train young people based on the real needs that will be indicated to us by the associated companies. And we will do so by also seizing the opportunity represented by the fact that our president of Sicindustria, Luigi Rizzolo, has been appointed president of Confindustria training systems, the training body for Italian industrialists. And this additional experience will enable us to create a solid and concrete project, on the model of the ITS which record a very high employment rate”.
Hiring incentives
Massimo Floridia, collaborator of the general manager of the regional Labor department, focused on a new incentive from the Region for new hires: “The notice for a contribution of up to 10 thousand euros per year for three years on stable hires will be published shortly, which can be added to other available incentives. As for the ‘Gol’ program financed by the ‘Pnrr’, so far it has involved around 200 thousand individuals to be retrained and inserted into the world of work. In April we invited companies to express interest in reabsorbing workers from companies in crisis, who will be able to train themselves in six months with our resources, and then hire them as specialists”.
Ivo Blandina, president of the Messina Chamber of Commerce, explored the tools put in place by the body to especially encourage female entrepreneurship, innovation, digitalisation and the internationalization of economic activities.
New skills fund
Lucia Alfieri, board member of Fonarcom, the first interprofessional fund for employment consultants in Italy in terms of number of participating companies, explained that with the “New Skills Fund, developed together with the Work Foundation, it is possible to better prepare young people by financing the continuous training of workers of participating companies with notices at the counter, also by aggregating online the companies and professional firms that are unable to accumulate sufficient resources for training. We, through employment consultants, mainly address micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, which due to their size have more difficulty in managing and addressing the topic of training in the sectors of ecological and digital conversion which require new skills” .
Maurizio Adamo, president of the Order of Labor Consultants of Messina, concluded: “We are fully satisfied with the result of this initiative. As employment consultants we have managed today to create a sort of ‘table’ between the Region, Municipality, University, educational institutions and the labor market, companies: that is, all the subjects of the supply chain that must accompany young people in the realization of their project of life. Having provided students with all the information on the opportunities available in the area in a complete manner represents a winning model that will certainly continue and which will see employment consultants play an active role in the coming years”.
