The pandemic was a whiplash on the labor market, delivering us on the eve of May 1st, a real paradox: there are more unemployed, almost a million, but also more vacancies; the process of matching job supply and demand works poorly, also due to the mismatch between the requisites required by the companies and the qualifications offered by the workers. Over 73,000 jobs are not covered and never before, in the presence of accelerated structural changes, active labor policies require fine-tuning. In particular, those dedicated to reducing the mismatch, the misalignment, between the professional profiles that companies require to keep up with the processes of technological innovation and the availability of adequately trained personnel or the timeliness in updating the skills of the one employed in the company . This is what emerges from a Policy Brief of the National Institute for Public Policy Analysis “The dual system as a response to the changing skills needs of the labor market” which will be published shortly.
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The text drawn up by INAPP compares the latest data available on the number of qualified and graduates in VET courses and the estimates on job demand contained in the Excelsior 2021-2025 report. In fact, there is a significant misalignment. An overall training offer (about 80,000 units) is able to satisfy only 52% of potential demand, with even more critical situations for the directions of mechanics, logistics and construction.
“The blocking of layoffs together with the massive use of social safety nets have caused a sort of optical effect: the freezing of unemployment that will inevitably break out alongside the shortage of professional figures increasingly sought after by companies – explained Professor Sebastiano Fadda, president of the INAPP – As a result of the pandemic, many companies have transformed, focusing on digital and electronic commerce, a change that does not exist in the job offer, while the most sought-after professionals are precisely in ICT. How to get out of it? Matching labor supply and demand requires a radical improvement in education and professional technical training, as President Draghi also recalled during his inauguration. But to improve employment we also need an increase in the participation rate of women, young people and a profound reskilling for adult workers. The “dual system” is a very useful tool to significantly reduce misalignment ».
Going into detail, the INAPP study highlights how the gaps between qualified / graduates in 2019 and the needs of companies are concentrated in the mechanical sectors (over 26 thousand) and in sales and wellness services, to which must be added the construction sector (almost 10 thousand units). Percentage, the figures relating to construction and logistic systems and services are especially lacking, with less than 5% of the requirement covered, followed by sales, mechanical and wood services (covered between 16 and 21% of the requirement). Vice versa, there are also figures for which supply exceeds demand, including those relating to clothing, and others for which the share of compliance with needs is higher than 90%, as in the case of the care and hospitality services, agri-food processing sectors. and catering.