The food sector is among the few to have held up during the pandemic. Now, with the recovery, it is preparing to run on the domestic and foreign markets. But the restart could be one of those without the accelerator: several key technicians are missing to ensure the functioning of the production lines. The alarm comes from Legacoop, which has commissioned an investigation to Randstad Research, and it is the first time that the sector has issued a signal of this kind. There is a lack of production process technicians (75% of difficulty in finding them), followed by mechanics and assemblers of industrial machinery (47%), by food production and preparation technicians (46%), by specialized workers involved in bakery and the production of pasta (43%) and by artisans specialized in dairy processing (36%).
Why can’t these figures be found? According to Randstad experts, among the main causes is a widespread under-qualification of workers available in the market, followed by a poor ability to update and keep up with technological changes. An important role, to fill these gaps, can be played by the Higher Technical Institutes (ITS): those active in the agri-food sector are 18, located in 12 regions, each of which has the possibility to characterize the training courses adapting them to the needs of the reference.
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The way forward is therefore to expand and strengthen the training capacity of ITS, in line with the professional needs expressed by companies. A step in this direction can be represented by the reform of the ITS system included in the Pnrr, which provides for an increase in enrollments from 5,097 to 18,750 and graduates from 3,761 to 5,250, the strengthening of laboratories with 4.0 technologies, the training of teachers and development of a digital platform for job vacancies for students with professional qualifications.