This report, published by the European Trade Union Institute, explores various aspects of ‘casualised’ work for young Italians. Its backdrop is a society where public policy has been consistently family-focused and where (in contrast to many other European countries) the family is relied upon to provide a public safety net, and where young people face elevated risks of being unemployed or in casualised and insecure employment.
Younger workers across Europe are worst affected by casual employment:
- 50 per cent of employees aged under 25 are on permanent contracts (as opposed to 80 per cent for all age groups)
- 10 per cent of workers aged under 25 have no contract at all (compared to 5.6 for all employees)
- 25 per cent are on temporary contacts (as opposed to 12 per cent of all employees)
- 4 per cent are agency workers (1.5 per cent of all employees)
(Source: European Working Conditions Survey, 2010)
The report argues that casualisation fuels social inequalities, and that the phenomenon needs to be looked at in terms of social class: “young people from disadvantaged backgrounds may be more permanently casualised than young people from more affluent backgrounds. So casualisation is handed on down the generations”. As a result, some authors posit the development of a “precariat” – an intergenerational class stripped of the protections that the labour movement managed to win for most workers throughout in the twentieth century.
A number of recommendations are put forward, including:
- Tackling the poverty risk through wage protection, minimum income schemes and access to credit.
- Reducing inequalities in employment opportunities and targeting job mobility support at very young and under-educated workers.
- Providing easier access to the education system for disadvantaged people, for example through scholarships and job placement schemes.
- Re-orientating production processes so that they are skill and innovation based, rather than continuing the cycle of de-skilling.
