Young Italians are fleeing the country

2024-05-29 08:40:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Marlene di Nocco lives alone in a stylishly furnished apartment in Rome's Testaccio district - and has already achieved more than many of her generation. Young people in Italy are among Europeans who live longer with their parents. But her parents kicked her out when she was 19, says Di Nocco, and forced her to study abroad - in Karlsruhe. Engineering studies should provide her with better opportunities in the job market. She finished her studies in Germany and could easily have worked for Bosch or Daimler, but then homesickness forced Marle to return to her friends and family. Although he knew that at home he did not expect such favorable conditions in the labor market.

"Cheating" to survive

Now the 34-year-old sits at the table in the living room of her small apartment with her laptop. He works for an NGO based in Rome - eleven months a year. Then she must take annual leave so that she is not legally entitled to permanent employment.

Young Italians are fleeing the country

This happens to many well-trained professionals her age. 40 percent of employees up to the age of 34 have fixed-term or seasonal contracts. For the rest of the working-age population, this percentage is significantly lower at 13 percent. "Many of my friends work in unsafe working conditions. There is also a lot of illegal work," she says. "The tax burden is so big that at the end of the month you don't have enough money at home just from a regular job. So you start cheating a little bit - just to survive."

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In Italy, the average annual gross salary is around 27,000 euros, which is twelve percent less than the EU average and 23 percent less than the German average. Employees under the age of 34 earn on average around 16,000 euros. A permanent and well-paid contract is a rarity for young people in Italy. "To get a higher position, what matters most are years of service. Maybe in Germany it's more common to have a 30-year-old boss. I've never experienced that in Italy. New employees have to they always start over," says Marlen. Experts note a dangerous development for the Italian economy: more and more students emigrate abroad, up to 20,000 per year. The numbers have tripled in the last ten years.

Big difference between north and south

Christina Freguja heads the labor market department at the Ista Statistics Agency. She points to growing difficulties when it comes to finding and retaining skilled workers, especially in the south of the country, who are urgently needed for the modernization of the economy and economic upliftment. While northern Italy still benefits from immigrants from the south, these traditionally less developed parts of the country lose tens of thousands of hard workers each year. "If those who bring innovation leave, this weakens us further within Europe", Freguja fears.

Support in family businesses

Young Italians are fleeing the country

The gap is further exacerbated by traditional economic structures in many parts of Italy. The situation of small family businesses has also become difficult. "These companies often employ family members and invest little in innovation and digitization," says Freguja, which, he adds, makes it difficult for them to compete internationally. As these companies are small, they focus mainly on the market local and do not find it necessary to hire new workers outside the family.The result: young people cannot find work and companies become obsolete.

The situation in the Italian labor market is even more difficult for young women. They are offered fixed-term contracts much more often than their male colleagues. This is partly due to the choice of studies, but also due to the cultural heritage in the south of Europe, which to this day places most of the responsibility for family and children on women. The poor infrastructure with nurseries and kindergartens, especially in the south, forces young women to decide between family and career.

Better social life

But one of the reasons why many decide to stay in Italy, despite the difficult conditions, is the social life. Marlene di Nocco closes her laptop for the day in her apartment in Rome and walks out into the square in front of her apartment. Another reason why he came back from Germany: "In Germany you have to make an appointment with someone two or three weeks in advance. Here I just go out and always find someone to talk to or have a beer with." She missed company. And some warmth. But in Germany she would have more security./ DW