People risk and the challenge of finding adequately skilled and qualified labour has been exacerbated by COVID-19 and the acceleration in the shift towards a more digital economy in Italy. According to the latest research by EY, Pearson and Manpower Group, during the last decade, Italian companies have found it increasingly difficult to get workers with the desired skills in the domestic labour market. Prior to the pandemic, businesses were struggling to find 25% of the required professionals.
In this scenario, the pandemic could generate a loss of between 1.2m and 1.4m jobs according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Further, the recovery will be slow and will follow different evolutionary courses, in terms of growth rate and development direction, compared to those forecast before 2020.
It is likely that a good number of the lost jobs will be reabsorbed during the coming months, but this could happen because the needs of all industries have evolved. Organisations, in the meantime, are waking up to the fact that they must make a qualitative leap towards more technological operating and business models.
According to the study, Professions 2030: The Future of Skills in Italy, the technological transition and the ongoing COVID-19 crisis will accelerate the obsolescence of skills, tasks and job titles, further redefining employment.
The pandemic has given rise to a need for economic and social resilience that will become structural in the labour world and modify the demand for new roles by companies. In addition to the skills specific to the various positions, there will be greater attention on so-called soft skills, such as the ability to relate, listen and interact.
The evolution towards digitalisation (57% of the fastest-growing occupations need a technical background) will require new professional profiles and also the upskilling or reskilling of workers, and adequate training of young people entering the labour market for the first time.
Predictive models on employment in Italy show that 80% of existing professions will change quantitatively during the next decade. Today more than one in three workers conduct an activity that will grow in the next ten years (36%), 20% work in a business that will remain stable and 44% are in a field bound to regress.
Half of the growing occupations will be somehow linked to technology, but jobs in the areas of culture, communication, care and assistance, teaching and training will also increase.
In general, the figures show that upward employment trends are concentrated in corporate and personal services while the most descendant trends are in manufacturing and agriculture. A