Salvatore, Lidia

Based on information derived from 85 case studies across all EU Member States and other sources, the project outlines the features peculiar to SMEs in their anticipation and management of restructuring, explores the main drivers of change and analyses the factors influencing successful restructuring. It offers some insight into how restructuring impacts on workers and the company itself and sets out several policy pointers for future action. This is the country report for Italy.

This report analyses the labour market situation of young people in Europe, with a specific focus on the NEET group. It examines the determinants of belonging to the NEET group, and measures the economic and social costs of NEETs. It also assesses how Member States through policies and interventions have sought to support young people to gain a foothold in the labour market. It shows that successful policy initiatives address specific, disadvantaged subgroups in the NEET population. They are client-centred in their efforts to set young people on a pathway to long-term, sustainable employment and they are innovative, adopting new ways of reaching a target group. An executive summary is also available.

The reduction of working time has played a major role in lessening the impact of lowered production output on employment levels, and this project aims to investigate short-time working and temporary layoff schemes which have been used as a means of avoiding redundancies by many Member States during the recession. Eurofound has conducted an in-depth analysis of schemes available in nine Member States during the recent economic crisis. This is one of the individual country reports describing the Italian national public support scheme. A comparative analysis of all the individual schemes forms the thematic part of the ERM Report 2010 – Extending flexicurity – The potential of short-time working schemes.

In the face of recession, falling demand and the consequent slowing of production, short-time working and temporary layoff schemes have been extended (or introduced) in many Member States. These schemes, often with the aid of public funds, reduce working time, while protecting workers’ incomes and company solvency; frequently, the time spent not working is used for training instead. This report examines the practice of reduced working time across Europe, and looks in detail at how it is implemented in 10 Member States, with a view to determining the contribution that such schemes can make in implementing the common principles of flexicurity, especially in light of the broad-based consensus they enjoy among the social partners.

As European economies slide into recession, companies face increasing financial difficulties as sales decline and prospects for a quick recovery recede. Consequently, a growing number of businesses are coming under threat, putting the jobs of more workers at risk. Already across Europe many companies have closed or reduced their scale of operations substantially and many jobs have been lost. This report examines the various measures being taken by governments and trade unions in different countries to try to maintain jobs, or at least to moderate the losses that occur.