A country of doctors, engineers, computer scientists and specialized technicians. A country that does not exist: what companies would need to face the recovery that should follow the pandemic. A general situation in the peninsula that in the North West takes on particular characteristics: right in the middle of the transition the area seems to lose competitiveness, compared to the rest of the North, on the quality of its workforce. In this part of Italy, for example, the greatest difficulty is finding IT technicians and people who know languages. Poor knowledge of English? Also but it is a problem that mainly affects the older generations. The real challenge, the entrepreneurs explain, is to learn Chinese.
It is in the coming weeks that families will have to choose which school their children will follow after middle school. An important choice because it is the first one that will somehow orient their professional life. What professionalism will companies need when children leave school? Difficult to say because probably some trades that will be lacking at the beginning of the next decade do not yet exist today.
The transformation of the production system is continuous and, in recent years, particularly impetuous. The Unioncamere survey reported in the Excelsior system says that in December 82 out of 100 companies reported a shortage of “pharmacists, biologists and other specialists in the life sciences”. Effect of the virus? Probably. Although the search for specialized personnel in these professions will continue after the desirable defeat of the disease. On the other hand, the lack of “generic personnel in construction” is more linked to the current situation.
That companies reported this difficulty in December 2021 is certainly a fact linked to the super bonus for construction works. Ten years from now, it is difficult to imagine a similar situation. On the other hand, it is likely that the demand for “computer science, physical and chemical science specialists” will continue over time. The business digitization plan, which should be supported by NRP funds, will certainly not be short-lived. Today 66% of companies report difficulties in finding such figures. Unlike what happens in other areas of Italy, the economic structure of the Northwest is still closely linked to manufacturing. Last December, 39% of new hires in Piedmont were related to the production of goods and services. And 15% of new employees were in the engineering and engineering areas.
A more detailed picture of the jobs that are lacking, better than the professional skills that companies cannot find on the market, is the one taken by Fondimpresa, the jointly managed fund between companies and trade unions which allocates 0.75% of workers’ payslips to employee training. “Our companies need people who know information technology and are able to communicate with the world“, summarizes Isabella Antonetto, president of the Piedmontese bilateral body of the fund, designated by the industrial component. Also because, adds Eric Poli, his deputy, indicated by the unions, “over the years the workforce of the north-west area has lost competitiveness compared to that of Lombardy and Emilia, for a long time our natural competitors. Today the Piedmont area is considered at the level of Lazio and Tuscany ».
A gap, the one with Lombardy and Emilia, to be recovered as soon as possible to avoid that it translates into less attractiveness of the territory. To decide where to invest, companies take into account the quality of the work they have available in an area. The reasoning refers to an average: in the Northwest there is no shortage of international excellence. And the differences between generations are very strong. The most obvious case, knowledge of languages: «We need to teach English to middle-aged workers who have not had adequate schooling. And we have to teach Chinese to children who come from schools today, where instead English is generally taught well and for them it is not a problem ”, explains Antonetto. In fact, a large part of the 3 and a half billion that the fund disbursed in Piedmont in 2021 for updating languages is precisely in Chinese courses. But it is a very difficult language for us. “Employees are not expected to learn to speak Mandarin fluently – adds Antonetto – but that they will be able to understand commercial language and read a letter or an email”.
In general, Poli observes, “the northwest carries with it the legacy of traditional manufacturing. The older workforce was formed when digitization did not exist and language learning was not essential to working in the factory. Today this is no longer the case ». It is therefore not surprising that almost 5 billion of the training fund in Piedmont go to computer courses. The transition from mechanical to digital is about machines and the men who make them work. For this reason, explains Antonetto, “in 2020 and 2021, even when the actual production activity was reduced by the pandemic, the refresher courses remained standing, in many cases they actually increased. The companies took advantage of the break to catch up on training ».
So which schools should you recommend to young people who have to choose the address to follow? They can’t all become doctors or engineers. And perhaps the system would not help. On the other hand, companies in the North West lack specialized technicians capable of adapting to technological change. “There are two possible paths: apprenticeships in companies and higher technical education courses after graduation,” explains Poli. Two possibilities to integrate education and work. An encounter that seems to have become increasingly inevitable.