"Precarious, poorly paid and lost. The under-30 generation is living in Italy its worst season ever, cut off from the idea of progress and promotion that has always supported the generational turnover." (Walter Passerini for La Stampa).
Our country does exactly the opposite of other nations. Young workers are paid less without taking into consideration their talent and skills. Bank of Italy Governor Ignazio Visco does not call for stable jobs or free academic instruction for all, but simply demands more education, and to invest in new technologies and quality to provide young people with the skills required at the start of their career. In 16 Italian regions Superior Technical Institutes have been set up, as an alternative to university, where theory and practice are combined together to enable students to actually learn a profession at the end of their studies.
Graduates and diploma holders are wanted for 2012. A total amount of 23,000 people are sought after, of which 31,8% shall be engineers and architects, 34% economics graduates, plus 8,000 doctors (11%) and then nurses, bank clerks, educators and skilled technicians, and also sales assistants and great distribution workers.
Dear creative people, fashion designers, journalists, filmmakers, artists: you are not included among this year's new recruits. Yet, isn't creativity what makes a nation great? Of course we do need technicians, but without creativity they are of no use. Would technicians have realized the same genius inventions without Steve Jobs? Production is based on a creative idea. Besides, product managers are hired also in fashion while young designers are distrusted. Yet in many cases fashion houses have great assistants who just can't make it without a creative leader.
And there are lots of journalists who report on an event, or interview a personality and do not raise interest in the reader at all. Soporific articles filling up useless pages. And those who make movies? Directors, actors, costume and set designers. Nobody invests in them. Let them leave the country and be successful abroad.
It's true we need more education and more preparation, in all professions and not only in technical ones. Talent scouting is as important as professional training, and it's our duty to support our talents. They are our country's resources. They represent innovation. Also Superior Creative Institutes should be set up.
Financial support is needed, and we all know it would be an excellent investment. Besides, as Ferruccio Dardanello, the Chairman of Unioncamere, the Italian association of chambers of commerce, has remarked: "We can move out of the crisis also, and especially, by investing in our young people, in their extraordinary innovation capability." I think he is totally right!
From Franca Sozzani's blog on Vogue.it