The traps of in-work poverty and the brain drain and the sustainable choices of the best Italian companies
There are profound economic and social distortions in the skewed growth of the Italian system. This is confirmed by some illustrative figures. 230,000 workers without contracts or rights, exploited in the Italian countryside, whose condition has been highlighted dramatically in recent days by the death of Satnam Singh, an Indian agricultural labourer, left to die by his employers after a serious accident. But also 768,000 graduates that companies are ready to hire, for high-level jobs and good pay, but of which they can’t find at least half. On the one hand, unreported and underpaid work (as documented by a report in La Stampa, 24 June), and unfilled qualified work on the other. The economy is suffering from a crisis of productivity and competitiveness, with its roots precisely in an unbalanced, unjust job market, also marked by unacceptable conditions of safety and exploitation (350 deaths at work already in the first four months of 2024, compared to 1,041 in 2023). President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella rightly denounced this situation once again, after Singh’s death, speaking of “a form of work that manifests itself with inhuman characteristics and that is part of a phenomenon – which emerges not infrequently – of exploitation in the work of the weakest and most defenceless, with illegal and cruel methods and conditions.”
So these distortions need to be overcome, moving beyond the sentiment-filled government speeches that follow every serious accident. Positive dynamics also need to be set in motion again, just as the new dimensions of the “knowledge economy” and the radical transformations brought about by the spread of Artificial Intelligence posit the urgency of decisions to relaunch and reinforce the country’s productivity on the part of businesses and Italian society in general, in the now serious “demographic winter”. So it’s no to in-work poverty and brain drain (“7/10 emigrated graduates don’t consider returning to Italy”, notes Il Sole24Ore, talking about higher salaries and better prospects for professional success abroad; 17 June), yes to investment in knowledge and the quality of industry and work itself. Otherwise, it will mean deterioration and irreversible decline for our country.
We’re not starting from scratch by taking this angle.
Those who look closely at the dynamics of Italian growth, alongside the widespread imbalances (“Gangmasters, fictitious companies and turning a blind eye in the public administration”, writes Il Sole24Ore, 23 June), also observe the very positive contribution made by companies that have been innovating, investing and keeping pace with the dual environmental and digital transition for nearly 20 years, establishing themselves as outstanding and capable of occupying important positions in the highest value added niches on international markets and guaranteeing Italy a role among the top five countries in the world in terms of exports (650 bn is this year’s figure). In short, they’re companies that focus precisely on human capital and the social capital of virtuous relationships with the cultures of the areas where production is located to strengthen their growth paths on the markets. They’re “polytechnic cultures”, capable of original fusions of humanistic and scientific knowledge, of beauty and new technologies.
This is echoed in the pages of the “Cohesion and competition” report by the Symbola Foundation and supported by Unioncamere and Intesa San Paolo, which will be presented in the next few days in Mantua, from 26 to 29 June, on the occasion of the association’s annual summer seminar. It documents, once again, how companies that have invested in environmental sustainability have boosted productivity, exports and employment (43% of those making green investments had a 7-point increase in production compared to non-eco-investing firms). It also documents how attention to quality training, innovation and care for areas are key to strengthening a productive fabric that’s rich in innovative manufacturing and services that have made culture and sustainability a strategic competitive factor rather than a communication decision.
“Digitalisation and decarbonisation represent the outlook for good companies,” maintains Ermete Realacci, president of Symbola, with the awareness that industry and the environment aren’t conflicting realities, but converging factors in a process that sees the circular and civil economy, quality of work, scientific and technological research and the deepening of all aspects of knowledge as the key factors for Italy’s growth in Europe and the Mediterranean. So neither negative degrowth nor anti-industrial ideology, but critical awareness of sustainable development.
“We are the times”, is the key phrase of the Symbola seminar. A quote from St Augustine: “Bad times, hard times. This is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times.”
Indeed, there’s profound wisdom in this perspective. There is no waiting for better times: there’s a concrete choice of a political, social and cultural commitment to create and strengthen the conditions for a better, more humane and responsible development.
Here we find the roots of the commitment to build “a safer, more civilised” and, indeed, “kinder” world referred to in the “Assisi Manifesto”. This document “for an economy on a human scale” was drawn up in 2021 by the Franciscans of the Sacro Convento and Symbola and signed by figures from economics, culture, universities, businesses and a long list of associations in civil society, starting with Assolombarda and Confindustria. And you can hear an echo of the powerful lessons of Pope Francis’s encyclicals and of a large part of the best economic literature that, after the imbalances of financial greed and unbridled globalisation, attempt to define conditions that can maintain a combination of market and society, international competitiveness and widespread well-being, political and economic democracy and participation. These strong values of a Europe to be relaunched and revived, moreover, have to contend with close-mindedness, nationalistic self-interest and protectionism.
Among sources of inspiration, there is an awareness, one that inspired the political commitment of Alex Langer, one of the leaders of Italian environmentalism: “Ecological conversion will only proceed when it’s socially acceptable.”
The example of the best Italian companies and the commitment of cultural and social associations proceed precisely on this positive path, to build more civilised “times”, in keeping with the human person.
There are profound economic and social distortions in the skewed growth of the Italian system. This is confirmed by some illustrative figures. 230,000 workers without contracts or rights, exploited in the Italian countryside, whose condition has been highlighted dramatically in recent days by the death of Satnam Singh, an Indian agricultural labourer, left to die by his employers after a serious accident. But also 768,000 graduates that companies are ready to hire, for high-level jobs and good pay, but of which they can’t find at least half. On the one hand, unreported and underpaid work (as documented by a report in La Stampa, 24 June), and unfilled qualified work on the other. The economy is suffering from a crisis of productivity and competitiveness, with its roots precisely in an unbalanced, unjust job market, also marked by unacceptable conditions of safety and exploitation (350 deaths at work already in the first four months of 2024, compared to 1,041 in 2023). President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella rightly denounced this situation once again, after Singh’s death, speaking of “a form of work that manifests itself with inhuman characteristics and that is part of a phenomenon – which emerges not infrequently – of exploitation in the work of the weakest and most defenceless, with illegal and cruel methods and conditions.”
So these distortions need to be overcome, moving beyond the sentiment-filled government speeches that follow every serious accident. Positive dynamics also need to be set in motion again, just as the new dimensions of the “knowledge economy” and the radical transformations brought about by the spread of Artificial Intelligence posit the urgency of decisions to relaunch and reinforce the country’s productivity on the part of businesses and Italian society in general, in the now serious “demographic winter”. So it’s no to in-work poverty and brain drain (“7/10 emigrated graduates don’t consider returning to Italy”, notes Il Sole24Ore, talking about higher salaries and better prospects for professional success abroad; 17 June), yes to investment in knowledge and the quality of industry and work itself. Otherwise, it will mean deterioration and irreversible decline for our country.
We’re not starting from scratch by taking this angle.
Those who look closely at the dynamics of Italian growth, alongside the widespread imbalances (“Gangmasters, fictitious companies and turning a blind eye in the public administration”, writes Il Sole24Ore, 23 June), also observe the very positive contribution made by companies that have been innovating, investing and keeping pace with the dual environmental and digital transition for nearly 20 years, establishing themselves as outstanding and capable of occupying important positions in the highest value added niches on international markets and guaranteeing Italy a role among the top five countries in the world in terms of exports (650 bn is this year’s figure). In short, they’re companies that focus precisely on human capital and the social capital of virtuous relationships with the cultures of the areas where production is located to strengthen their growth paths on the markets. They’re “polytechnic cultures”, capable of original fusions of humanistic and scientific knowledge, of beauty and new technologies.
This is echoed in the pages of the “Cohesion and competition” report by the Symbola Foundation and supported by Unioncamere and Intesa San Paolo, which will be presented in the next few days in Mantua, from 26 to 29 June, on the occasion of the association’s annual summer seminar. It documents, once again, how companies that have invested in environmental sustainability have boosted productivity, exports and employment (43% of those making green investments had a 7-point increase in production compared to non-eco-investing firms). It also documents how attention to quality training, innovation and care for areas are key to strengthening a productive fabric that’s rich in innovative manufacturing and services that have made culture and sustainability a strategic competitive factor rather than a communication decision.
“Digitalisation and decarbonisation represent the outlook for good companies,” maintains Ermete Realacci, president of Symbola, with the awareness that industry and the environment aren’t conflicting realities, but converging factors in a process that sees the circular and civil economy, quality of work, scientific and technological research and the deepening of all aspects of knowledge as the key factors for Italy’s growth in Europe and the Mediterranean. So neither negative degrowth nor anti-industrial ideology, but critical awareness of sustainable development.
“We are the times”, is the key phrase of the Symbola seminar. A quote from St Augustine: “Bad times, hard times. This is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times.”
Indeed, there’s profound wisdom in this perspective. There is no waiting for better times: there’s a concrete choice of a political, social and cultural commitment to create and strengthen the conditions for a better, more humane and responsible development.
Here we find the roots of the commitment to build “a safer, more civilised” and, indeed, “kinder” world referred to in the “Assisi Manifesto”. This document “for an economy on a human scale” was drawn up in 2021 by the Franciscans of the Sacro Convento and Symbola and signed by figures from economics, culture, universities, businesses and a long list of associations in civil society, starting with Assolombarda and Confindustria. And you can hear an echo of the powerful lessons of Pope Francis’s encyclicals and of a large part of the best economic literature that, after the imbalances of financial greed and unbridled globalisation, attempt to define conditions that can maintain a combination of market and society, international competitiveness and widespread well-being, political and economic democracy and participation. These strong values of a Europe to be relaunched and revived, moreover, have to contend with close-mindedness, nationalistic self-interest and protectionism.
Among sources of inspiration, there is an awareness, one that inspired the political commitment of Alex Langer, one of the leaders of Italian environmentalism: “Ecological conversion will only proceed when it’s socially acceptable.”
The example of the best Italian companies and the commitment of cultural and social associations proceed precisely on this positive path, to build more civilised “times”, in keeping with the human person.