Youth and Employment: What’s their Future? With Vittadini, Aprea, Persico, Rosina and Nembrini

Press Meeting

Give job opportunities to youth, make professional training better, give hope to new generations. The theme is very important, according to the speakers who have participated in yesterday’s conference “Youth and Employment: What’s their Future?” at the Meeting.
A deep analysis of the topic was illustrated, with the help of many slides, by Alessandro Rosina, Professor of Demography at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan and curator of “Rapporto giovani” (Report on Youth) at Toniolo Institute “In Italy people usually speak a lot about youth,” said Rosina, “but without really knowing them. The “Rapporto giovani” wants to fill this gap with the biggest Italian survey giving youth the opportunity to speak and looking at the problems from their perspective. The report presents a lot of data overturning many commonplaces. Youth are not passive but resourceful, they want to have more economic autonomy as opposed to their family, they know how to adapt to work, which is very different from their study itinerary, and they are not scared about manual jobs. What they fear the most is precariousness, exploitation and underpayment.”
People talk about NEET [Not (Engaged) in Education, Employment or Training], that is, when youth neither work nor study. Giorgio Vittadini, President of the Foundation for Subsidiarity, said that “in our country this figure reached 2 million and 200 thousand people and you can’t think that the situation can get better without any intervention.” Also at the conference was Daniele Nembrini, President of the Ikaros Foundation, who insisted on the necessity of investing in professional training, a result of his personal and business experience. “Companies need people who add value,” said Nembrini. If it is true that the challenge is one of education, we must reawake people. A cognitive approach is needed. We learn by doing.”
Pierino Persico, President of Persico Spa, is very direct. “Nowadays youth don’t have the work ethic, they need to discover the beauty of doing, the beauty of work.” To solve the situation “before blaming the government, we must look at our responsibilities towards youth.” It is necessary to combine “the right to study with the right to work,” said Valentina Aprea, Education, Training and Job Assessor of Lombardy Region. Not by chance, thanks to the “study in the company, find work at school,” campaign of Lombardy Region, “just in July, 9827 youth, aged from 15 to 29 years, have been admitted in the labour market.”
(D.S.)

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