Jyrki Katainen, the European
commissioner for jobs, growth, investment and competitiveness,
on Thursday praised Premier Matteo Renzi's contested Jobs Act
labour reform.
"The Jobs Act will help hires and it is fairer on young
people," Katainen told a joint hearing of Senate and Lower House
committees in Rome.
The former prime minister of Finland also praised the
whole of the ambitious programme of structural reforms the Renzi
executive has embarked on.
"All the Italian government's reforms are just and
important and they will increase competitiveness," he said.
The Jobs Act gives gradually rising levels of
labour protection to people hired on open-ended permanent
contracts, but it also softens protection against unfair
dismissal.
The aim is to replace a plethora of temporary and other
low-paying, no-benefits contracts that have proliferated in
Italy in recent years, meaning a regular full time job is
increasingly hard to find.
Renzi said the labour law will encourage firms to hire new
staff and help combat unemployment, which has reached a record
high of over 13% in recession-battered Italy, with young poeple
hit especially hard.
The bill passed despite in parliament staunch resistance
from several opposition parties and a minority within Renzi's
own centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
The reform has also raised high-voltage protests from two
of Italy's three big trade-union confederations, the CGIL and
UIL, which staged a general strike against it and the
government's 2015 budget law on December 12.
The main bone of contention is the change Article 18 of
the 1970 Workers Statute, which protects people
from unfair dismissal, for newly hired workers.
If a labour tribunal finds that a firm with over 15
employees did not have just cause to dismiss a worker, in most
cases it will now be ordered to pay compensation rather than
reinstate the staff member.
The exception would be in cases of discrimination or
dismissals made on the basis of groundless disciplinary
complaints.
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