I’ll tell you about the bad information on short-term jobs
Deadline work and bad information. Claudio Negro's analysis of the Kuliscioff Foundation
The ISTAT data on the labor market for the month of May do not provide significant information. The overall decline in employment (- 49,000 units compared to April) is the first unsurprising result of the signs of a slowdown in the economy: a connection that we will be able to appreciate more precisely when ISTAT publishes the monthly note on the trend of the economy, scheduled for on 1 July but postponed to 11 of this month.
Some indications, however, are provided by Confindustria data which indicate a -1.4% for industrial production for May, while the PMI index (business purchasing programs) loses 2.5 points.
That said, some clarification is appropriate. As expected, the media threw themselves on the only fact that could present some glamor: the number of temporary workers (3 million 176 thousand) which represents the highest number ever since 1977.
Obviously, more or less clearly depending on the newspaper's propensity for understatement, the data is presented as proven proof of the precariousness of work. It is curious, however, to observe that in the fateful 1977 the percentage of fixed-term contracts on the total of employees was even 23% against the current 17.6%. But then the term precariousness referred at most to a table that wobbled on its legs!
Another observation is appropriate: the increase in forward contracts in recent years (to be clear, from 12.2 %% in 2004 to the current 17.6%) did not occur as a result of a decrease in permanent contracts that have passed from 14,220,000 to 14,797,000 in the same period. Indeed, the growth of fixed-term contracts, in addition to not having damaged stable jobs, has massively contributed to increasing employment: from 19 and a half million in 1977 to almost 23 million today, with an employment rate that has risen from 54% to 59, 8% (source: ISTAT statistical report – data reconstructed since 1977).
It is useful to make a comparison between the various European economies: Eurostat provides data (updated to 2021) which illustrates the percentage of temporary workers in relation to the total number of employees (therefore both employees and self-employed): the average figure for the euro area is 13.2%, for Germany 10.5%, for France 13.1%, for Sweden 13.2%, for Holland even 23.1%, is for Italy the 13.2%, exactly like the European average.
There is therefore no particular Italian prerogative for fixed-term work, which we use exactly like the other strong economies of Europe.
The scourge of unemployment and the scourge of insecurity exist, as an effect of short-term work, only in union sermons and in the spectacle of the media.
The real problem is not the lack of work but the fact that the demand and supply of work do not meet: a problem that cannot be solved either with subsidies or with administrative devices.
Respect for laws and employment contracts is another thing, unwanted part-time is another thing, and the low purchasing power of wages is another. But all these critical issues have very little to do with a physiological use, compared with the situation in other European countries, of the fixed-term contract.
On the other hand, it is worthwhile to focus on some positive data: employment of the younger group is growing much more than in the other age groups (+ 16.8% in the last 12 months).
The inactivity rate increased slightly compared to April (+ 0.2%) due to the same dynamics that produced the decline in the employment figure. However, the decline in dependent work in the presence of a growth in self-employment after 15 months of decline must probably be read as an indicator of the direction of the mobility flows triggered by the (actually rather modest) phenomenon of voluntary resignations.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/vi-racconto-la-cattiva-informazione-sui-lavoro-a-termine/ on Sat, 09 Jul 2022 05:15:07 +0000.