Italy Job Market

Barista job in an Italian cafe
Barista job in an Italian café

 

Contents:

Easier to Find Jobs in Italy for the Elderly than the Young

In Italy Short-term and Open-ended Contracts on the Increase

High Demand Jobs in Italy

 

Easier to Find Jobs in Italy for the Elderly than the Young

Italy’s job market is going through a florid period if compared to the previous decades.

This is according to the latest data published by Istat, the National Institute of Statistics, a public autonomous research body which is the country’s leading producer of official statistics in co-operation with the academic and scientific worlds.

Istat data show that employment rate in Italy in June 2022 stood at 60.1%, +0.2 points above the previous month for both sexes, and this represents a historic high, having never been so good since 1977. The unemployment level is 8.1%, a record low since 2012.

In the 27 countries of the European Union, the average unemployment rate is 6.0%.

 

In Italy Short-term and Open-ended Contracts on the Increase

Back in Italy, short-term contracts are experiencing a boom among the young as well, and open-ended contracts, namely without a fixed term or fixed end date, have also been on the increase.

However, in the last year permanent jobs have also experienced a rise.

Italy’s unemployment rate among young people aged between 15 and 24 is 10.2%, much lower than what it’s been in the last few years. Among the elderly (50-64 years) the unemployment rate is 5.5%.

In both the European Union and the 19 countries of the eurozone, youth unemployment has also been dropping.

 

High Demand Jobs in Italy

Some employment sectors are understaffed and the demand for workforce in these is high.

In increasing demand are jobs in smart working, which have higher flexibility in regard to both hours and place of work.

The areas where recruitment is most difficult and job openings are most numerous are the highly specialised, intellectual, scientific and technical professions, particularly in the fields of computer and IT expertise, engineering and production technicians, project designers, and similar; mathematics and chemical, physical and natural sciences; craftsmen and specialist workers.

Also financial and insurance services, telecommunications sector, and the paper industry offer a greater number of jobs to young people than most fields.

Nevertheless, growth is expected to be strongest in tourism, construction and retail.

Houses in Milan Northern Italy
Houses in Milan, Northern Italy

 

A Job Sector in Expansion in Italy: Domestic Jobs

In the last decade there has been an explosion of domestic jobs in Italy, with a leap as high as 42% and a number of employees around 1 million. This group comprises both housework helps and carers. The latter are predominantly – about 60% – Eastern Europeans. The average age of employers in this sector is 62 years.

More and more people in Italy will need assistance work in the coming years, due to the demographic trends which clearly show that the Italian population is ageing, and as a consequence the demand for assistance to the elderly is growing.

From the latest ISTAT official statistics and projections it emerges that in 2065 Italy’s population of 65 years or over will be 32% of the total population, about 11 percentage points more than today, while the young population will go from 14% to 12.7 % of the total.

The curves of the two groups (children and elderly) have an opposite trend: the elderly follow a steady growth, while children tend to decrease. All this means an increase in the average age of the country’s population which, if in 2015 was 44 years, in 2065 will reach almost 50 years.

With increasing age, the need for both domestic work help and carers grows, and this applies not only to privates and families but also to state-provided assistance and welfare system.

The data show that there is a positive correlation between population age and presence of domestic assistants.

For example, in regions of Italy where there is a high number of people over 75, there is a higher number of carers.

Lombardy, the region of Milan, in northern Italy, has a 16.2% distribution of over-75s, the highest in Italy, and has the correspondingly highest proportion of the country’s carers: 15.0%.

It’s therefore an easy prediction that the growth of the elderly population will lead to an increase in demand for carers and other domestic workers.

Searching from Home: Useful Websites. Monster Jobs Italy

The simplest and quickest way to find a job these days is to search directly on the Internet. There are free services on the web which collect job vacancies from all over Italy and allow you to get in contact with companies easily and rapidly, offering you many more job opportunities than by just looking at newspaper classified ads. My advice, then, is to start immediately using the Internet, where practically everything one needs can be found in real time.

Monster is a well-known, long-established global recruitment free site that helps you to find employment in Italy as well as in other European countries, in North America or in other parts of the world. The link is to the US site so, if you want to find a job outside the USA, simply click on the Monster logo on the top left to go to the home page, then scroll to the bottom of the page where you’ll see the American flag; click on the flag and you’ll see a menu of different countries from which you can choose the one you want. The language will be the one of the country selected, e.g. Italian; you can always use Google Translate.

Monster lets you do many things, all free: carry out job search of various types; browse and view its vast listings of job vacancies; post online your resume for free to its site, to let employers find you and also to apply online for jobs instantly; join BeKnown, Monster’s professional network on Facebook, to make powerful connections and find better jobs and opportunities; create a new free My Monster Account, which you can use to get expert career advice, access more career tools and information, have jobs sent via email and meet new professional contacts.

Monster is a giant job portal, with international sites all over the globe.

It contains hundreds of job offers in Italy, in many sectors and in every area of the country: engineers, accountants, sales executives, scientists, architects, law graduates, technical agents, authors, editors, translators, administrators, consultants, commercial executives, English language teachers, managers, telephone operators, controllers, designers, new graduates, project leaders and managers, supervisors, analysts, buyers, lawyers, programmers, software development specialists, Human Resources managers, interpreters, key account managers, business development managers, agents, customer service assistants, directors of internal communication, strategists, future entrepreneurs, auditors, trainers, coordinators, even advertising copy writers and tourist village animators.

Jobs can be found in Northern, central and Southern Italy, including the islands, in every region of Italy.

For job seekers, there is also the good-value Monster Résumé Writing service.

Employers can post jobs and search resumes on Monster, allowing companies to reach millions of quality candidates and representing the best hiring solution for small businesses.
Here’s the link:
Monster

In the Internet-driven, competitive job market of today, it is particularly important to prepare a CV (or resume) that impresses your prospective employers among the hundreds or thousands that they are now allowed to access.
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ResumeEdge provides resume and cover letter editing and writing services.
By providing high-impact, powerful and distinctive resumes (CVs) that consistently win interviews, its hand-picked team of certified resume writers has helped thousands of clients articulate their qualifications and land better jobs at higher pay.
ResumeEdge experts specialize in 40 different industries to provide the highest quality resume and cover letter services available. They have mastered the art of resume writing to increase a resume’s success.
The College Journal, from The Wall Street Journal, uses its resume services and its information content, as do AOL, WetFeet, Yahoo and other major companies.
If you order today, you’ll receive your new resume or cover letter within 72 hours.
Here is the link:
ResumeEdge

Look at the figures. The number of employers using the Internet to recruit people has increased threefold every year in the last two years.
Some major companies, particularly in certain sectors like IT, conduct as much as 90 per cent of their recruitment through Internet job advertisements, mainly published on online recruitment agencies, websites specialized in matching job-seekers and employers.
Many multinational companies as a rule publish their job vacancies on the web.
The Net has simplified many job-seeking processes. Until not long ago it was difficult to find, for example, a job in a different country before leaving home. But now the Net has made that search easier.
Another benefit of online job search is the much greater information about employers and recruiters you can gather quickly and cheaply. A career seeker who is better informed and more focused is already starting with an advantage.
In the US, looking for work on-line is already common practice. But Europe, including Italy, is catching up, too. A proof of that is a book recently published in Italy, entitled Trovare lavoro con Internet (Finding a job with the Internet), which asks the rhetorical question: «… in the US a great part of job searches is carried out on the Net. Why not try it in Italy too?».

 

Italy Job Market

The job market in Italy is not very dynamic, unfortunately. That’s the reason why many Italians actually leave the country to find jobs abroad. Italy has one of the lowest employment rates in the European Union. If Britain, for instance, had the same employment rate as Italy, it would have 7 millions less people working.
Not a very nice thought, is it? You may find this surprising, because after all Italy is one of the G8, one of the most industrialized and prosperous countries in the world. Northern Italy has some of the wealthiest regions of Europe, although Southern Italy is lagging behind.
One of the reasons why in Italy it’s difficult to get a job is due to the country’s long tradition of nepotism, which is widespread and permeates deeply almost every field, public and private. Any Italian will tell you that all the most coveted positions are to be occupied by “raccomandati”, individuals with recommendations from people in high places.
This is especially true of sectors which attract a lot of interest and as a consequence what jobs vacancies they might have are particularly sought after: fashion, media, culture, university and so on. It’s difficult to be ambitious in Italy without the right connections.
Another thing to bear in mind is that educational levels in Italy are very high if compared with, say, Britain. Italians take a great pride in their cultural past and in the heritage that put them at the heart of Western civilization. The standards of Italian schools and universities are generally high, and to obtain a diploma or a degree in this country requires particularly hard work.
Anyway, it’s not impossible to find a job. There are several routes to take. You can get registered with a local job centre, a state-run office to help you in the search for a job, similar to those existing in many other countries: in Italy it’s called “ufficio di collocamento”. You’ll find them in all areas.
When in Italy, look for newspapers entirely devoted to classified ads. I can’t give you all their names because they are local and vary from region to region, but “La Pulce” and “Portobello” are among the most popular ones. The Italian generic name for them is “giornali di annunci gratuiti”. Some public libraries are also good places to look for a job.

Before you leave, you could visit the jobseekers’ section of the European Union site, which is multilingual: EURES

This is a service of the European Union (EU), of which Italy is obviously part, called EURES (European Employment Services). It is a computerised network of all the national employment offices of the member states of the EU plus Norway and Iceland. Every EURES section has one or more euroadvisers, about 500.

When you enter the site choose a language, then start looking for jobs in the country of your choice. You’ll find that Italy is not among the countries with most jobs, quite the opposite but, even so, there are still hundreds of offers.

If you need help you can contact the helpdesk or chat online with a EURES adviser.

Citizens of the member countries of the European Economic Area (EEA), which includes not only the EU but also Norway and Iceland, the free movement of workers permits nationals of one EEA country to work in another EEA country on the same conditions as that member state’s own citizens, both in terms of access to employment, working conditions and all other social and tax advantages.

Generally, as a EU national, in Italy you can look for a job, work without needing a work permit, reside for that purpose and stay there even after employment has finished.

It is for obvious reasons always easier to get a job in a tourist resort, by the sea or in the mountains, during the Summer, if you’re looking to work in the catering industry.
Recently Italy, following a European trend, has developed a network of remote workers, people who work from home. The statistics say everything: over 9 million remote workers in Europe, or 6 % of the workforce; 720.000 remote workers in Italy, or 3.6% of the active population. That means that, compared to the previously-published statistics, the number of remote workers has doubled in Europe and more than tripled in Italy.

 

Click on the following links to find a comprehensive list of books, DVDs, videos, CDs and other things on Italy, including auction items and web resources:

Italy from amazon.com

Italy from amazon.co.uk

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