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In early 2005, the Eurispes research institute published its annual survey of Italy's political, economic and social situation. The latest report devotes considerable attention to an analysis of recent changes in the Italian labour market, with particular regard to 'atypical' work. The study - which also covers new contractual forms introduced by a 2003 labour market reform - seeks to describe the main features of the process of flexibilisation under way in the labour market for the past decade. Eurispes has also conducted a survey of atypical workers, examining their careers, working conditions and degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with aspects of their jobs, as well as the impact of flexibility on their state of mental and physical well-being.
The Institute of Political, Economic and Social Studies (Istituto di Studi Politici, Economici e Sociali, Eurispes) has been conducting research since 1982. Every year, Eurispes publishes a report (the Rapporto Italia) that provides a political, social and economic overview of the country while also outlining trends in the expectations, satisfaction and dissatisfaction expressed by the population with regard to the three areas surveyed.
The 2005 Rapporto Italia, published in January 2005, contains a section devoted to measurement and evaluation of the development of 'atypical' work. According to the report, 'in the past decade, the standard model of full-time permanent jobs has been flanked by the development of numerous contractual forms atypical with respect to traditional employment, as far as modes and times of work participation are concerned.' Atypical work has increased both in the area of dependent employment (part-time contracts, fixed-term contracts, temporary agency work, seasonal contracts, apprenticeship and work/training contracts) and the area of non-dependent employment (contracts for 'employer-coordinated freelance work', contracts for 'supplementary work' and other forms of 'semi-subordinate' autonomous work).
The scale of atypical work
The Eurispes report stresses that over the past 10 years the growth of non-dependent forms of employment has been matched by an increase in 'atypical' dependent employment, which comprises part-time work on open-ended contracts and part-time and full-time work on fixed-term contracts.
The number of part-time workers on open-ended contracts increased by 16.3% between 2000 and 2003. In 2003, a total of 14,464,000 workers were on open-ended contracts; of these, 7% (more than 1 million workers) were employed part-time, of whom 86.8% were women. These Eurispes calculations are based on data from the National Council for Economics and Labour (Consiglio nazionale dell’economia e del lavoro, Cnel) and the National Statistics Institute (Istituto nazionale di statistica, Istat).
There are three different types of contract regulating fixed-term employment in Italy: fixed-term contracts for full-time or part-time work; contracts that combine work and training - ie apprenticeship and work/training contracts, though following a 2003 reform of the labour market, the latter have been replaced by 'work-entry contracts' (IT0307204F); and temporary agency work contracts. In 2003, there were:
- 1,583,000 workers on fixed-term contracts. Of these, 443,000 were employed on a part-time basis (29.3% of the total). Women accounted for the largest proportion of such part-time employment (65.7% of workers on fixed-term part-time contracts);
- 651,648 workers on employment contracts that combine work and training - a 15.2% decrease in comparison with 2000 (almost entirely due to a cut in work/training contracts).
As regards temporary agency work, the implementation of law 196/1997, which regulates the activities of temporary work agencies (IT9707308F), has produced a significant increase in the number of workers on this type of flexible contract. According to Istat, in 2002 the average number of temporary agency workers was more than 140,000 per month, which was an increase on the previous year. Working days by agency workers over the year amounted to 24 million, a figure corresponding to around 95,000 full-time equivalent workers (0.59% of total dependent employment and 0.43% of the total average for 2002).
In the case of non-dependent atypical work (IT0404303F), the scant availability of data makes precise quantification of the number of 'employer-coordinated workers' (known as 'co.co.co.' workers) very difficult. According to estimates by Cnel, there were 695,419 'pure semi-subordinate' workers in 2003, and 59% of them were women. According to the Eurispes report, the use of employer-coordinated freelance contracts has grown progressively, and considerably when compared with the general employment trend. Between 2000 and 2003, total employment grew from 21,080,000 to 22,054,000, which was an increase of 4.6%, compared with a 28.8% rise in employer-coordinated freelance workers (who numbered 540,067 in 2000 and 695,419 in 2003).
Some 225,000 new jobs were created in 2003, and more than half of them (52.3%) involved 'atypical' employment: 29,000 jobs (12.9%) were part time on open-ended contracts; 20,000 (8.9%) were on fixed-term contracts; and 68,700 (30.5%) were on contracts for employer-coordinated freelance work.
Finally, the report finds that over the past decade a general growth of flexible employment has been accompanied by an increase in female employment (up 7% between 1993 and 2003) mainly taking the form of 'atypical' female work.
Qualitative features of atypical work
The Eurispes researchers’ analysis of the above quantitative data highlights that 'atypical' work has now grown to significant proportions. Indeed, as a proportion of total employment, just under 12 out of every 100 employees work on atypical contracts. Added to these are 'semi-subordinate' workers, who account for 3.1% of total employment. Overall, therefore, at least 14.9% of employment (around 3,300,000 people) involves 'atypical' employment relationships - without considering casual workers, for whom reliable figures are not available. The Eurispes analysis of the qualitative features of 'atypical' work concentrates on two aspects in particular, as follows.
Employer-coordinated freelance employment relationships
With regard to employer-coordinated freelance employment relationships, the report stresses that, 'although its use facilitates work entry, the arrangement is often made permanent by constant renewal of the contract, so that it in fact comes to constitutes a subordinate employment relationship'. This finding has been confirmed by a recent research study carried out by the Economic and Social Research Institute (Istituto di ricerche economiche e sociali, Ires) - to which the Eurispes report refers - that assesses the changes in the freelance work relationship implemented by the 2003 law reforming the labour market (legislative decree no. 276/2003 - IT0308304F).
One of the aims of the labour market reform law was to curb abuses of the employer-coordinated freelance employment relationship and to enable a large part of the workers involved to switch to more binding contracts for 'project work' (IT0404303F). In this regard, the findings of the Ires research are not entirely encouraging: between October 2003 and September 2004, 43.6% of employer-coordinated freelance workers did not change their type of contract. Among those that did so: the majority (68.1%) became 'project' workers (continuing, though, to work exclusively for the same employer); 11% shifted to dependent employment on fixed-term (2.2%) or open-ended contracts (8.8%); and around 7% switched to casual employment (2.4%) or to contracts combining training and work (2.2%), or decided to become self-employed and register for VAT (2.3%). Implementing the changes envisaged by the new rules on employer-coordinated freelance work has therefore been rather difficult.
According to Eurispes, 'this difficulty is mainly due to the lack of incentives for job stabilisation and to an excess in terms of labour cost between subordinate work and work regulated by employer-coordinated freelance contracts'. In this regard it has been found that, given a gross wage of EUR 1,000, an employer that wants to convert a 'co.co.co.' contract - for which the monthly labour cost is EUR 1,042.50 - into a 'project work' contract will incur a 22.2% increase in the labour cost. The difference would be 43% in the case of a switch from 'occasional' work to subordinate employment. In both cases, therefore, the labour cost differentials are very high and consequently economically off-putting for the employer.
Protection for atypical workers
The wide variety of forms of flexible work provided for by the law is matched by an extremely heterogeneous legal framework for the protection of 'atypical' workers. According to the Eurispes researchers, 'this diversified system of protections tends to reduce the bargaining power of workers and the capacities of the trade unions. In fact the tendency towards the individualisation of employment relationships makes it difficult to identify interests and rights shared by all the various categories of atypical workers. Moreover, the provisional nature of the atypical employment relationship hampers collective forms of protest and the claiming of rights.'
Sample survey
Eurispes also conducted a survey of a representative sample of 446 'atypical' workers aged between 18 and 39. The aim of was to assess the impact of the various forms of 'atypical' work on the life plans of people who have reached an age 'at which, generally, they must take important, often non-postponable, choices: for instance, the decision whether to have children'. The majority of those interviewed were single (only 6.5% were married). As regards educational qualifications, 83.2% had degrees and 55.9% a masters or other postgraduate qualification. As for type of contract, 27.9% of interviewees were 'project' workers, 22.9% had casual work contracts, 20.9% had contracts for employer-coordinated freelance work, 13.2% worked on part-time contracts, 8.5% worked for temporary agencies and 5.4% had 'work-entry' contracts. The survey covered a range of topics and the opinions of the interviewees differed, in some cases, according to the type of 'atypical' work contract regulating their employment relationship:
- duration of atypical employment. Some 61.7% of the men and 62.8% of the women interviewed said that they had always worked on 'atypical' contracts - 31.1% of the sample for no more than two years, 20% for between two and three years; 18.6% for between four and five years, and the remaining 30.3% for between five and 10 years;
- pay. Of the interviewees, 76.5% received a monthly net wage of no more than EUR 1,000. Overall, the percentage of those who declared themselves 'not very satisfied' or 'not at all satisfied' with their pay exceeded 80% among both those employed on 'work-entry' contracts and employer-coordinated freelance workers (81.7%), and it was also very high among casual workers (73.5%);
- contractor. The survey found that 78.5% of the interviewees employed on employer-coordinated freelance work contracts worked for a single employer, while 73.1% worked full time and 71% were required to be present in the workplace on a daily basis (only 12.9% managed their work schedules autonomously);
- work-life balance and life choices. Some 63.7% of the men and 60.1% of the women interviewed said that they were dissatisfied with the extent to which they were able to balance their private lives with work commitments. A section of the questionnaire also gathered information on the interviewees’ ability to plan their lives and to make 'life choices'. As regards their possibility of having free time to themselves, the majority of temporary agency workers (60.5%) and 'project' workers (57.7%) said that they were dissatisfied, while the majority of occasional workers (72.5%), part-time workers (72.9%) and those on 'work entry' contracts (58.3%) expressed satisfaction with the amount of time that the work contract let them devote to personal interests or needs. Some 56.3% of the interviewees said that the fact they were 'atypical' workers had 'greatly' (26.5%) or 'significantly' (29.8%) influenced their chances of leaving the parental home to live on their own, while around one-third of the interviewees declared that economic vulnerability and a lack of social protection - which they regarded as features typical of non-standard work - had negatively influenced their maternity or paternity choices (32.8% of women and 27% of men expressed this opinion);
- perception of precariousness. Of the interviewees, 79.6% believed that job instability was the main negative aspect of their work contracts. Precariousness also conditioned access to certain services - 71.3% of the interviewees said that being an 'atypical' worker had 'greatly' (51.8%) or 'significantly' (19.5%) influenced their ability to obtain a mortgage, while more than half of the sample reported that their 'atypical' contracts had 'greatly' (33.4%) or 'significantly' (33.2%) influenced their access to bank loans. Moreover, 34.1% claimed that the 'atypical' nature of their contracts had 'greatly' (19.5%) or 'significantly' (19.5%) affected their chances of enrolling on training or retraining courses;
- skills. Around 47% of the sample believed that flexible forms of work tended to downgrade their skills, while 40% (54.9% among men and 28.5% among women) instead believed that flexible work provided an opportunity to upgrade their skills . In particular, employer-coordinated freelance workers (42.1%) and workers on part-time contracts (59.3%) tended to see 'atypical' work as an opportunity for professional enrichment;
- mental and physical well-being. A significant proportion of the interviewees stated that being an 'atypical' worker substantially affected their state of mental and physical well-being because it provoked anxiety, stress and depression - 29.6% said that not having a permanent job often made them stressed, and more than one-third (33.6% said that precariousness was a frequent cause of anxiety; and
- prospects. From the economic point of view, more than 43% of the interviewees envisaged their futures as 'mediocre' (35.7%) or 'bad' (7.4%). Conversely, 33.2% envisaged their futures as 'fairly good' or 'very good' (14.6%). As regards joining a supplementary pension scheme, 17.7% said that it was too early to think about pension provision, while 10% did not consider it necessary. Among those who believed that it was advisable to consider paying for a supplementary pension (67% of the interviewees), 42.3% of the interviewees aged between 26 and 32, 28.7% of those aged between 33 and 39, and 27.2% of the youngest workers stated that for the time being they could not afford to subscribe to a supplementary scheme.
Reactions
On its publication at the end of January 2005, the Eurispes report provoked contrasting reactions among the political parties and the social partners. The parties belonging to the centre-right government coalition expressed perplexity at 'the gloomy picture' painted by the research institute, although they admitted that problems did exist, especially in the economy and the labour market, which urgently required attention. For the opposition centre-left coalition, the Eurispes report only confirmed the mounting difficulties of the Italian economic system, for which it believes the centre-right government is unable to devise an adequate industrial policy strategy.
In the opinion of the largest trade union confederations - the General Confederation of Italian Workers (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, Cgil), the Italian Confederation of Workers’ Unions (Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori, Cisl) and the Union of Italian Workers (Unione Italiana del Lavoro, Uil) - the report accurately depicts the crisis currently afflicting the Italian industrial system, a situation in which, as the confederal secretary of Cisl, Raffaele Bonanni, put it: 'employment is growing only in its new atypical forms, unemployed workers in the South are removing their names from the job centre lists, and wages no longer guarantee real purchasing power'.
Commentary
The Eurispes study of 'atypical' work highlights some of the problems that seems inevitably to ensue from the 'non-regulated' introduction of forms of flexible work. On the one hand, forms of 'regulated' flexibility such as part-time and temporary agency work have brought out the positive more than the negative aspects of the flexibilisation of work. It is quite evident that temporary agency work has become a form of employment that enables firms to cope with unexpected labour shortages, while at the same time it usefully serves as a trial period (in some areas of the country, it is used to screen potential employees). The other 'regulated' form of flexibility - part-time work - has fostered greater growth of female employment in the past 10 years. It has therefore responded to needs such as the flexibilisation of working hours and the reconciliation of private life with work, although part-time work seems not to respond to career expectations.
On the other hand, the contractual forms that promote 'generalised' flexibility (types of 'semi-subordinate' work in general and casual work) tend to be associated more closely with the negative aspects of flexible work: principally precariousness, which in some cases considerably impedes the taking of concrete life choices and the building of a continuous career path.
As regards the representation of 'atypical' workers, the main trade unions have sought to develop forms of 'horizontal' representation that cut across sectoral lines (IT9807327F). These specific organisations aim above all at meeting the particular needs of 'atypical' workers by offering consultation services on contracts and taxes, and by providing forms of supplementary social security and health coverage. However, the creation of ad hoc representation bodies for flexible workers may unwittingly generate further segregation from, rather than integration with, 'standard' workers.
It thus seems necessary to link flexibilisation of the labour market with a general set of social protection and a social security system that takes due account of the growth of unstable and discontinuous employment relationships. A possible solution, also in view of the increase in 'atypical' forms brought about by the recent reform of the labour market, may be the creation of a universal set of protective measures for workers - applicable to all workers (including the self-employed), regardless of the contractual form - which meet their retraining needs and assist them during periods of unemployment. (Diego Coletto, Fondazione Regionale Pietro Seveso)