SICILY HAS WORST YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

Italy, according to figures released by the small business association Confartigianato, has the highest youth unemployment rate in Europe with 1,138,000 unemployed under the age of 25.  Of these, young adults under the age of 24 are the worst affected, with 29.6% being unemployed as compared with a European average of 21%.

Sicily is the largest and worst affected of the Italian regions, with 28% of adults under 35 being unemployed.  This compares with a national average of 15.9%. In Southern Italy as a whole 538,000 young people are unemployed. The rate in Campania is 27.6%, in Basilicata it is 26.7% and the rate in Sardinia is 25.2%.  Things are very different in the North, the rate in Trentino-Alto Adige being 5.7% and that in Lombardy being 9.3%.  The rate in the country's smallest region, the Valle d'Aosta, is 7.8%.

I feel sorry for young people in Sicily, who, as I've written  here, do not go around burning the businesses of people who might one day have employed them, loot shops or terrorise the good citizens of their cities.

The unemployment rate for adults in Italy is 23.2%.

UNEMPLOYMENT AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE IN SICILY

Ellee has an interesting post about the plight of unemployed graduates in Britain and I thought that readers would be interested to learn a little about the situation here:

First of all, what are the unemployment statistics for Italy as a whole? According to Eurostat, in 2008 the number of unemployed shown as a percentage of the total labour force was 6.9%, 5.9% among males and 8.4% among females. The figure was 21.3% among the under-25 age group. If we look at Sicily, where the total unemployment rate is said to be 25 - 26% but is probably higher, the figure rose to a staggering 42.9% among young people in 2001. In 2007, Eurostat calculated the figure for 15 - 24-year-olds to be 32.2%, still the highest in Europe.

The reasons for this are many and complex and the situation cannot be blamed solely or even mostly on the global recession: the fact that young people now enjoy better access to higher education and tend to prolong their studies is cited as a reason in one article I have read [not online] but surely many prolong their studies precisely because they fear, or know, that there are few jobs to be had?

The major factor is far more likely to be the way that the system works in Italy and particularly in Sicily: When I tell my Italian students that in the UK it is possible to apply directly for a professional job, they are flabbergasted, as in Italy they have to put themselves through a complicated series of "competitions" and the job is usually awarded on the results of these, with no interview. Apply this already flawed arrangement to Sicily, where, alongside a young generation obsessed with the technological revolution and social networking sites, the old ways persist, and you can imagine what happens - or maybe you can't: in some spheres it is impossible to get a job without a "recommendation" and in others it is even possible to "inherit" a job! The EU can bring in all the equal opportunities policies it likes and abundant are the pieces of paper on which these are circulated to all employers; it makes no difference.

Worryingly, in 2001, 14% of young Sicilians about to leave school said that they would not hesitate to seek the protection of the Mafia if this would secure them a recommendation for a job. Another 34% stated that they would not but that they could understand why others would do so. In the same poll, 49.7% felt unready to face the jobs market and most blamed their schools, nearly half blamed society in general and 7% blamed their families.

"I feel I will have to leave Sicily because I can't get a good job here unless I know someone important. It would be different if my family was rich", a student told me a year ago.