The President of Confindustria Veneto, Enrico Carraro, also spoke among the guests on the stage in Padua. In a close dialogue with the director of La Stampa, Massimo Giannini, he talked about recovery, business, work, debt and territory. Below is a summary of the dialogue.
At what point is the Italian economy?
«My observatory is Venero more than Italy. Now it’s fine here but we’ve been through a lot. We now have two tracks, one that is going very fast and showing an economy that is recovering. Exports have also restarted and have exceeded the values of 2019. Then there are other sectors, even large ones such as tourism and the fashion chain, where it will take a few more months to restart ».
Let’s talk about the debt. How worried are you?
“A lot. We are a country that is too indebted and we have companies that are too indebted. Even in this phase, those who wanted to get out of difficulties had to resort to debt. I don’t know if it will be enough to extend the terms of the debt and I don’t know if it is necessary to transfer the debts to the equity ».
How does it come out? With a patrimonial?
“No. And here Draghi clearly said that it is not the time to take but rather to give ».
On the labor front, was the blocking of layoffs right and now its extension for the sectors most in crisis?
«Yes, from a certain point of view it was right. Also for the psychological holding of the Paeself. From another point of view, however, the answer is no: because in that context it was not possible to train to transfer skills to workers to be used in companies that are now running. It should be remembered that during the period of layoffs there is no can do training ».
Are you afraid that the Italian industrial system will resort to mass layoffs?
“No, we will not fire. We are hiring. The problem of those who do business in the North today is rather to find people to employ, in all functions. So not only the super technicians ».
How can this dysfunction in our labor market be explained?
“There has been a training deficit in recent years, where the University has not been able to interpret what would be the jobs of the future. The companies, on the other hand, knew what skills they would be looking for after 10 years. We need to work much more with the school, the university, with training ».
Land skills are also important for increasing productivity. What opportunity does the National Recovery and Resilience Plan represent?
“I am in love not so much with the Plan as with the fact that thanks to the Plan we will finally have to make some reforms.”
Which are the most urgent?
«It is that of the public administration. We companies spend 57 billion a year on bureaucracy ».
There is a gigantic wage issue in Italy. Depends on what?
«Also from the type of production and the added value that we are unable to achieve with our companies, deteriorated even more by globalization. This territory was formed on the concept of “small is beautiful” which was studied at the University until the 2000s. We then realized that “small” is incompatible with a world that no longer has borders ».