In the land that first turned the Polish plumber into a threat and then greeted Europe, there is a region that in recent weeks has found itself in the midst of a desperate hunt: Lincolnshire producers were ready to pay up to 30 the unobtainable broccoli collectors needed to land the vegetables on English tables, before resigning themselves at the end for drying. In the same days, in Piedmont, an investigation by Confartigianato Torino gave voice to the alarm raised by a series of companies on the absence of highly specialized figures, especially in the digital sector and on the environmental sustainability front. But the sos also involved cooks and pizza makers, machine tool builders, mechanics and fitters, sales and distribution technicians, car repairers, installers. To get to construction and discover that mechanical technicians, welders and flame cutters, workers specialized in building maintenance, unskilled workers and scaffolding workers, carpenters are in hiding. Up to close with the now chronic shortage of truck drivers.
If overseas most of the blame is due to Brexit and the policy of “give it to the foreign worker”, in Italy – with the North West that does not escape this logic – we are wondering about the real reasons that caused the emergency to explode. In addition to Covid, obviously. And the answers, as often happens, are not unique. These are the ever higher costs for driving licenses for bison on the road, paychecks that are too low for those who accept to sacrifice the weekends and the holidays ordered to the task of serving the many who instead sanctify rest. that some welfare measures such as the citizenship income push us not to worry beyond a certain extent to look for a job, the gloomy colors of the picture do not seem to offer a glimmer of common light for now. There is a point, however, that could bring the space between supply and demand closer on many fronts, also and above all in perspective. Whether the need is to satisfy the search for engineering graduates or to see young apprentices in the artisan shops that still dot the North West. One of the solutions is called confrontation: a continuous, open and updated dialogue between those who train – the school – and those in the area who expect to reap the benefits of courses at all levels. In this key, the funds arriving from the NRP can make an important contribution, moreover when they push to reorganize the technical and professional institutes and the higher technical institutes. Listening to the voice of the territory can be a key to making the right choices. And the territory, for its part, must be ready to respond. Possibly, with one voice.