New perm contracts down 2.5% in 8 months (4)

(ANSA) - Rome, October 19 - Pensions and social security agency INPS said Thursday that 1,032,486 permanent open-ended job contracts were stipulated in the first eight months of 2017 (including temporary jobs converted into steady ones), a drop of 2.5% with respect to the same period in 2016.
    It said virtually the same number of steady contracts, 1,033,409, were terminated in this period. It said a total of 4,597,982 new job contracts were stipulated, when permanent and temporary ones are added together, while 3,653,940 were terminated, for a net gain of 944,042.
    INPS said that there was a 129.5% increase in the number of so-called 'on-call' work contracts in the first eight months of 2017 with respect to the same period last year. It said the increase went from 121,000 'gig' contracts in the first eight months of 2016 to 278.000 in 2017. It linked the rise to the scrapping of a controversial voucher system to pay for occasional work. INPS said Thursday that in September the number of hours it authorized of the Cassa Integrazione (CIG) benefit for workers who have been laid off or had their hours reduced by companies in financial difficulty was down 49.8% on the same month last year. It added, however, that the number of CIG hours was up 3.9% with respect to August. The agency said 266.3 million CIG hours were authorized in the first nine months of 2017, down 42.15% on the 460.4 million in the same period last year. It is the lowest level since 2008, when 228 million CIG hours were authorized in the equivalent period.