Why Italy and Europe should invest on people

The 2015 annual Survey on Employment and Social Development (ESDE) in Europe has highlighted number of significant gaps among the member states of the European Union (EU). According to the study, many of these economic and productive differences are mostly due to an underestimation of human capital in several fields.

ESDE's research spotlighted some of the ways to fill those gaps, focusing on employment creation, the effectiveness of labour market, welfare modernization and a better use of human resources.

In details, this study stressed how it is important to foster entrepreneurship through a system of incentives and tax reduction. Moreover, in order to foster women's presence on the labour market, given that they are the main carers, it is essential to improve child- and aged-care external services. In addition, it is essential to find a good compromise between flexibility and security when speaking about job contracts.

At the same time, the EU should aim at increasing the mobility across the member states and also to fight the long-term unemployment - currently affecting 11,4 million people within the Union - through the subscription to local employment centres.

Marianne Thyssen - Employment Commissioner - has pointed out the need to invest on people. In particular, she argued that it seems necessary to make the labour market accessible to all those categories that are usually considered as "outsiders", such as women, youngsters, aged people and ethnic minorities.

Most importantly, it is fundamental to invest on people since there is a huge mismatch between the workers' skills and qualifications with their level of retribution. In fact, high education is usually not required for certain positions. Vice versa, some technical jobs remain vacant because of the scarce training of the workforce. Therefore it is crucial to invest on people's training and to re-equilibrate the labour offer with its demand.

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