Positive signals

There was a boom in permanent contracts in Italy in the first eight months of 2022, Corriere writes. Taking the snapshot of labor market conditions in our country were the latest data from the INPS Observatory on Precarious Employment, which found an important element: from January to August, in fact, 937 thousand permanent contracts were activated. This is a 31 percent increase over the same period last year.

From seasonal waiters to store managers

Many are wondering how to interpret these positive signs. How, after all, does one explain a stabilization boom of this magnitude in a period of great economic uncertainty? It is likely that after the freeze caused by the pandemic emergency, the Italian labor market is experiencing a season of unexpected vitality. Such a leap forward in permanent contracts has not been seen since as far back as 2015. After a boom in flexibility made up of time entries, companies-particularly in the manufacturing sector-decided to retain employees in a sector that structurally pays for a shortage of technical profiles and has faced significant staff shortages as orders have grown (Euronews).

Future unknown

Also to be considered, the Courier added, are “Migrations” between sectors, with many young workers moving from tourism to logistics and service industries. There is only one catch though: despite the positive data, it is clear that recession clouds are on the horizon, and this is evidenced by the news we read every day about layoffs in Big Tech, from Twitter to Amazon and Meta. For Italy, one of the signs to monitor will be precisely the number of fixed-term entries, since these are the contracts that generally precede the stabilization of workers(Rainews).