According to the data, young people from Emilia-Romagna have the wind in their sails when it comes to employment. It’s a shame, however, that there are fewer and fewer under 35s enjoying the current favorable conditions of the job market: between those “lost” in the last 20 years and those we will lose in the next 20 there are 81 thousand fewer. This is what emerges from an analysis by the research office Lapam Confartigianato which investigated the job market for young people in the region and in the province of Modena. Since post-Covid, employment has seen a strong recovery driven mostly by women and young people. Modena is 10th among all the provinces at a national level for the best youth employment rate, recording 55.3%.
The excellent employment performance is accompanied by the growing problem of finding people to join the company, including young people: Modena companies struggle to find 46.7% of staff under 30. The cost estimate for micro and small businesses of the mismatch connected to the search for workers for a period of over 6 months in Modena is around 277 million euros, 1.06% of the added value: a figure which makes the province the 7th at national level in terms of incidence on added value. The lack of personnel translates into a lack of skills, a condition which over time could damage the production fabric and the excellence of Made in Italy. In the last 20 years in Modena there has been a -6.6% of young people between 15 and 34 years old: this is because, in addition to the decline in the birth rate, there is the fact that many boys and girls today can, with ever greater ease, choose to build their future outside national borders. The monitoring of the migratory flows of young graduates between 25 and 39 years old towards other regions or countries remains positive for Emilia-Romagna with Modena placing 6th in Italy as the most attractive province for graduates.
The discussion of youth businesses deserves a separate chapter: as of 31 December 2023, the most updated data available, there are a total of 5,374 businesses managed by Under 35s in the Modena area. 25.1% of these are managed by women, while 28% of the total are managed by foreigners. On the other hand, there are 1,764 youth artisan businesses, which represent 9.1% of the total artisan businesses in the area.
«We have a duty to focus on young people – they conclude from Lapam Confartigianato – and to invest in their training and their future. The micro and small businesses in the area, understanding the difficulty in finding staff, are also more attentive to employee welfare, as the data tells us. Factors such as flexibility, expected by 32.5% of regional companies, increased wages and smart working, just to name a few, play a key role in terms of attractiveness. We must then support those young people who want to start their own business: the fact that, at a regional level, the figure for new youth businesses has increased by 42.5% in the last 5 years gives hope to us as an association and to the entire entrepreneurial system ».
