– **Central bank chief points to total opting out of labor market**
– **Tally is more than the actual number of Italian jobseekers**
In a litany of woes Bank of Italy Governor Ignazio Visco listed this week, the sheer number of his fellow citizens who don’t bother seeking work was especially bleak.
The proportion of people active in the labor market is among the lowest in Europe, he complained to the country’s economic elite gathered in the gold-painted Shareholders’ Hall of Palazzo Koch, his institution’s home in Rome. Worst affected is the poorer south of Italy, where the governor hails from.
The labor market was only one of many weaknesses Visco highlighted in his annual speech on Tuesday. It may prove among the trickiest for the European Union to fix as it deploys skills-focused programs in its bid to reinvigorate Italy with 200 billion euros ($214 billion) of Recovery Fund cash.
Unlocking the jobs potential trapped in the inertia of the euro zone’s third-biggest economy is one of the few options available to fight the consequences of a demographic decline so stark that the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has warned the country risks having no people left.
“Overcoming the factors that hinder productivity growth has become even more necessary” given the population outlook, Visco said. It “can only partly be countered by an improvement in the migration balance and by an increase in the labor-market participation.”
The numbers are stark: 2.62 million people are available for employment but not seeking it, more than the actual tally of jobseekers. On top of that are 872,000 part-time workers who would like more hours, and 90,000 people who want a job but aren’t immediately available, according to Bloomberg calculations based on Eurostat data.
“It makes me really sad to see these numbers,” said Andrea Prencipe, professor of innovation management and rector of Luiss University in Rome. “This points to a problem that goes beyond the usual issues of matching supply and demand, and skills. It’s a problem of mindset.”
As with many of Italy’s economic problems, the south suffers the most. Last year, when a measure of national unemployment averaged 9.5%, it was almost 24% in the area of Naples, where the 72-year-old Visco was born. The country’s third-biggest city, it is often seen as a proxy for the malaise and organized crime associated with that half of the peninsula.
I don’t blame them. Take a small penalty in living standards and you can live off of social security and have all your time to yourself. The alternative is 36-44 hours a week gone in an unsatisfying job for a wage that is barely anything more once you take out all the taxes and costs of actually getting to and doing the work.
The gap between living in the social safety net and minimum wage needs to be large enough to warrant spending ~40 hours a week at work. Will be an unpopular opinion here on Reddit, but this is why going too far towards welfare, backfires.
# “We abolished poverty”
Going to tell you a secret, those people mostly work unregistered jobs, i mean people working without a contract, Black job we call it, you basically are paid the same that you would be paid if you were under regular contract, but you do not get to mature the pension, the only person that gains from this status quo are the employers which save a ton of money in taxes.
How many billionaires live in Italy?
If the number is more then zero, that would be too many…
“This country could have as much unemployment as it’s prepared to pay for in social security”
Sir Humphrey Appleby
Welfare should only be given to those who absolutely cannot work. If you are able to work but don’t want to then you should cut off from all welfare and left to survive on your own instead of leeching off of taxpayers.
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– **Central bank chief points to total opting out of labor market**
– **Tally is more than the actual number of Italian jobseekers**
In a litany of woes Bank of Italy Governor Ignazio Visco listed this week, the sheer number of his fellow citizens who don’t bother seeking work was especially bleak.
The proportion of people active in the labor market is among the lowest in Europe, he complained to the country’s economic elite gathered in the gold-painted Shareholders’ Hall of Palazzo Koch, his institution’s home in Rome. Worst affected is the poorer south of Italy, where the governor hails from.
The labor market was only one of many weaknesses Visco highlighted in his annual speech on Tuesday. It may prove among the trickiest for the European Union to fix as it deploys skills-focused programs in its bid to reinvigorate Italy with 200 billion euros ($214 billion) of Recovery Fund cash.
Unlocking the jobs potential trapped in the inertia of the euro zone’s third-biggest economy is one of the few options available to fight the consequences of a demographic decline so stark that the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has warned the country risks having no people left.
“Overcoming the factors that hinder productivity growth has become even more necessary” given the population outlook, Visco said. It “can only partly be countered by an improvement in the migration balance and by an increase in the labor-market participation.”
The numbers are stark: 2.62 million people are available for employment but not seeking it, more than the actual tally of jobseekers. On top of that are 872,000 part-time workers who would like more hours, and 90,000 people who want a job but aren’t immediately available, according to Bloomberg calculations based on Eurostat data.
“It makes me really sad to see these numbers,” said Andrea Prencipe, professor of innovation management and rector of Luiss University in Rome. “This points to a problem that goes beyond the usual issues of matching supply and demand, and skills. It’s a problem of mindset.”
As with many of Italy’s economic problems, the south suffers the most. Last year, when a measure of national unemployment averaged 9.5%, it was almost 24% in the area of Naples, where the 72-year-old Visco was born. The country’s third-biggest city, it is often seen as a proxy for the malaise and organized crime associated with that half of the peninsula.
I don’t blame them. Take a small penalty in living standards and you can live off of social security and have all your time to yourself. The alternative is 36-44 hours a week gone in an unsatisfying job for a wage that is barely anything more once you take out all the taxes and costs of actually getting to and doing the work.
The gap between living in the social safety net and minimum wage needs to be large enough to warrant spending ~40 hours a week at work. Will be an unpopular opinion here on Reddit, but this is why going too far towards welfare, backfires.
# “We abolished poverty”
Going to tell you a secret, those people mostly work unregistered jobs, i mean people working without a contract, Black job we call it, you basically are paid the same that you would be paid if you were under regular contract, but you do not get to mature the pension, the only person that gains from this status quo are the employers which save a ton of money in taxes.
How many billionaires live in Italy?
If the number is more then zero, that would be too many…
“This country could have as much unemployment as it’s prepared to pay for in social security”
Sir Humphrey Appleby
Welfare should only be given to those who absolutely cannot work. If you are able to work but don’t want to then you should cut off from all welfare and left to survive on your own instead of leeching off of taxpayers.