“The mismatch between job supply and demand is a central theme. There must be a common effort by the institutions and social partners to promote training and the bargaining tools to support it, in a rapidly evolving labor market.” Thus the Minister of Labor and Social Policies, Marina Calderone, responded to the concerns expressed by Confartigianato regarding the increasingly serious problem of labor shortages reported by companies. The discussion with Minister Calderone took place during the conference ‘Work, young people and the value of artisan intelligence’ organized in Rome, in the renovated Auditorium of the Confederal headquarters.
The conference, which preceded the work of the private assembly of Confartigianato, was attended by President Granelli, the head of the Confartigianato research office Enrico Quintavalle, the head of the consumption, markets and welfare area of Censis Francesco Maietta, Professor Stefania Bandini, professor of computer science at the University of Milan-Bicocca. The Confartigianato La Spezia delegation, composed of the president Paolo Figoli and the director Giuseppe Menchelli, brought the contribution of our local businesses, sharing experiences and proposals to support and enhance the work of businesses.
In her speech, the minister underlined: “We believe in training, in an important union between school and work, therefore in a collaboration between the business world and schools through professional training”. “Right now – she added – we have the jobs, but we don’t have the qualified workers for those jobs. There must be a common effort from the world of institutions, but also from the components of the social partners, employers’ associations and employee unions, to promote not only training, but also those tools that bargaining has created to support training and above all training of quality, which speaks the language of the company and of a job market that evolves rapidly and also requires a reskilling of skills and therefore a redefinition of training paths”.
“We have reformulated the institutions for income support and the fight against poverty – he said again – with specific attention to the theme of active policies, to the theme of training and retraining, to accompaniment to work and to a job that is necessarily different and will increasingly be so, because there are many stresses and just as many transitions underway. Above all, we have the great challenge of artificial intelligence which will have to be accompanied by profound reflections on the ways in which we want to manage work relationships in the future and above all on what man will do and what machines will do”.
President Paolo Figoli commented that “Italian entrepreneurs do not fear innovation, on the contrary, they embrace it to improve the excellence and uniqueness of their products, offering job opportunities to young people and transmitting essential skills to them”. Figoli underlined that “artisans are pioneers of renewal, ready to face the great digital and green transformations, and Confartigianato wants to be the engine that guides companies towards the future, despite the uncertainties due to international crises”. He then called attention to the importance of entrepreneurial culture in keeping the Italian economy competitive, guaranteeing widespread well-being and social cohesion. And he underlined the need to teach and support self-entrepreneurship, generational transition, and fight illegal activity, guaranteeing transparency in activities.
“Young people – said the president of Confartigianato – are a key element for the future of small businesses. There is space for young talents to experiment and put new ideas to good use. However, there is a problem of misalignment between job supply and demand: 246,000 workers with high digital skills are missing.” The President of Confartigianato therefore asked for new policies and effective interventions to bring together the business world with that of young people, and a new scholastic approach that trains the professionalism necessary for technological evolution. Figoli insisted on the importance of apprenticeship as a tool for transmitting knowledge.
“The shortage of qualified personnel – he underlines – is an emergency that must be addressed immediately, above all with an adequate training policy. Labor policies must be strengthened, harmonizing them with those of education and with interventions against the demographic crisis and the management of immigration, a factor that is not secondary in the face of a share of foreign employees in companies which is equal to 14.8% and which rises to 17.1% in micro and small businesses”.
Enrico Quintavalle, head of the Confartigianato Research Office, illustrated the report ‘In Search of Lost Work’ which highlights the growth of the gap between labor supply and demand, especially if qualified. In 2023, Italian companies reported difficulty finding 45.1% of the necessary personnel, equal to 2,484,690 vacancies. In June of this year, the share of unavailable workers increased to 47.6%. The problem is even more serious for small businesses that cannot find 48.1% of the required labor, a share that jumps to 55.2% for artisan businesses. The search for personnel has an average time of 3.3 months that can exceed a year to find specialized workers. All this for small businesses has a cost quantified by Confartigianato as 13.2 billion euros of lower added value for labor searches that last more than 6 months.
