The OECD said that Italy is set to
enjoy only timid growth after years of recession and depicted
difficult labour market conditions, especially for young people,
in a report released on Thursday.
"The Italian recovery will remain timid for some time,"
the OECD said in its employment outlook.
"According to the most recent OECD projections, Italy's
real GDP growth will be 0.6% in 2015 and 1.5% in 2016, both
below the expected growth for the Euro Area and the OECD as a
whole".
It noted that Italy's unemployment rate has started to
decrease from the 13% peak reached in November 2014, dropping to
to 12.4% in May while stressing that this was still 1.3
percentage points above the eurozone average.
The situation is particularly bad for young people, it
said.
The OECD said that Italy's youth unemployment rate for
2014 was 42.7%, up 2.7 percentage points on 2013 and more than
double the rate of 20.4% in 2007.
It added that more than one in four people under 29 in
Italy are neither in employment nor in education or training
(NEET).
"The NEET rate has soared by 40% since the onset of the
crisis, opening a wide gap with the OECD average," it said.
The Paris-based organization said that Italian workers who
start a career on a temporary contract find it particularly
difficult to obtain a permanent job on a stable basis.
"Only 55% of the typical labour market entrants who start
with a temporary job are on a permanent contract 10 years later
in Italy, one of the lowest figures within the OECD," the
outlook read.
It said the percentage of under-25 workers employed on
atypical contracts in 2014 was 56% up from 52.7% in 2013, from
42.2% in 2007 and from 26.6% in 2000.
The outlook also said that Italy's proportion of long-term
unemployed - the share of those who have been searching for a
job for more than one year - among the jobless was among the
highest within the OECD at 61.1%.
But the OECD did see identify positive areas too, hailing
Italian Premier Matteo Renzi's Jobs Act labour reform.
Among other things, the reform weakens the laws on unfair
dismissal in a bid to encourage firms to hire people on
permanent contracts, giving new employees gradually rising
levels of worker protection.
"The Jobs Act - by increasing incentives for the creation
of open-ended jobs under the new contract with a gradual
increase in protection, and extending the coverage of
out-of-work benefits - represents an important step forward
towards the reduction of long-term inequality and the
elimination of segmentation," the OECD said.
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