Investing in young people and skills to support the excellence of Italian supply chains

2023-05-05 16:57:33

That the agro-food chain and the Italian manufacturing they are two excellences we know. And we also know that they play a fundamental role for the country because, with a turnover of respectively around 570 billion euros and 390 billion, they are worth more or less 45% of GDP. Yet, this supply chain and the industry that revolves around it must be kept alive, fed and maintained every day not only with technological innovation and development, but also by training those skills that will allow it to always be one step ahead of its competitors.

You have to form them focus on young people, because they are the ones with their studies, apprenticeships, research and work experiences that make up the wealth that companies seek to understand where to go and set up their production. Even more so today, in a world where relocation is no longer seen as an opportunity, but often becomes a problem to be managed when in a country which, due to political positions, production methods and attention to the environment, is not in harmony with the guidelines that the companies most attentive to sustainability have set themselves to follow.

The globalization has made particularly numerous the long chainsbut Covid before and the war in Ukraine after, have highlighted the defects already highlighted by one increasing attention to social, governance and environmental issues: for some years now the aim has been to create short supply chains with few and limited production steps, even at zero kilometres.

In this scenario, theEuropa and theItalia they can be candidates as attractive investment centers if they are able to offer quality and competence. However, there are numbers that tell us that if Italy wants to keep up, it must invest more in young people. The moment is favorable because the European Commission, through the program NextGenerationEuprovides the necessary financial resources, more than 800 billion which should help Europe become greener, more digital, healthier, stronger and more equal.

The point of reference for employment policies aimed at young people is the recommendation that the European Council he put pen to paper in October 2020 in full pandemic with the program Youth Guarantee. “Member countries of the European Union must undertake to ensure that all young people under the age of 30 receive a good-quality offer of work or further education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within a period of four months from the start of unemployment or leaving the formal education system, in line with principle 4 of the European Pillar of Social Rights”.

Include all young people in one study or training programme, immediately after compulsory schooling, is essential to create the skills that companies are looking for. In Europe, in 2019, the percentage of young people who do not work but who are not even studying or following training courses (Neet rate) was 12.6%. The figure makes it possible to clearly define the inclusion of young people in the world of work and is closely correlated to the cycles and economic performance of a country. In 2020, with the pandemic, the percentage of Neet in fact, it rose to 13.8% and then fell back to 13.1% in 2021.

In this special classification Italy runs at two speeds. There are regions that are in line with or do better than Europe, but others that are at the rear of the entire continent. In 2022, four of the five regions that occupied the last place in Europe were Italian: la Sicily with a Neet rate of 36.3%, the Campania (34.1%), the Calabria (33.5%) and the Puglia (30.6%), interspersed in fourth from last place by alone French Guiana (31.3%). We are not asking to reach the peaks of some Dutch, German and Swedish regions which oscillate between 3 and 4%, but at least the European average of 13.1%. To date, the Italian excellences are the autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano with a Neet rate of 8.7%, theEmilia Romagna at 10.7% and the Lombardy al 12%.

You need to act here if you want to bet on development of Italian manufacturing and agriculture towards what the technicians call Intelligence Manufacturing e Smart Agricolturebecause as in all phases of technological “leap” there is a growing misalignment between demand and supply of skills with negative effects on productivity and on the ability to introduce new technologies and process innovations.

In Italia more than one out of two companies complains of a lack of both soft skills, information technology oh you project managementand of more advanced Ict skills, such as those of Data Sciencein Artificial intelligence oh you Machine learning. And four out of five companies find it difficult to find professionals with specific skills in the agricultural or IT world. Strengthen the teaching of technical and scientific subjects (Stem) e invest in continuing education it is the way to lay the foundations for training those skills that companies require and to lower the NEET rate even in regions where the difficulties are greater. Perhaps using fully the resources that theEuropa makes available to us.