Source: Unioncamere press office
Just under 458,000 contracts were programmed by companies in January and will rise to about 1.2 million in the January-March quarter. Compared to the same period last year, there is an increase
in the expected revenue (+112 thousand compared to January 2021 and +265 thousand compared to the January-March 2021 quarter). The comparison with December 2021 is also positive, with 104
thousand more contracts (+29.4%), for all economic sectors except tourism, where the growing uncertainties linked to the epidemic in recent weeks are weighing heavily. This scenario is outlined
in the Bulletin of the Excelsior Information System, produced by Unioncamere and ANPAL.
Despite the difficulties linked to the increase in the price of energy and many raw materials, industry is continuing with the expansionary trend already recorded during the year just
ended and is planning 150,000 entries for January. Construction companies in particular are looking for staff (46 thousand new recruits), followed by mechatronics companies with 26 thousand new
recruits and metal and metal products companies, which expect 22 thousand new recruits. Overall, the tertiary sectors totalled 307,000 new recruits: business services were in the lead (142,000
new recruits), followed by commerce (62,000 new recruits) and personal services (56,000). The new pandemic wave is having a negative impact, especially on the entire tourism sector, where
companies have forecast a 14.6% drop in the number of contracts activated compared to December.
On the whole, the flow of hirings is characterised by a prevalence of fixed-term contracts (181 thousand units, +55 thousand compared to last year), followed by permanent contracts (116
thousand units, +26 thousand compared to last year), temporary contracts (70 thousand, +20,000 compared to last year), collaboration contracts (19,000, +6,000 compared to January 2021),
apprenticeships (17,000, +3,000 compared to 2021) and other forms of dependent contracts (11,000, +6,000 compared to 2021) and not dependent contracts (44,000, -4,000 compared to a year ago).
Also in January, the difficulty of finding a job increased: compared to a year ago, it rose by 5 percentage points, reaching 38.6% of planned entries. The lack of candidates is the reason
for difficulty most frequently reported by companies (22.2%), followed by inadequate preparation (13.4%) and other reasons (2.9%). The most difficult to find are construction companies (53.3% of
the profiles sought), followed by the wood and furniture industries (53.0%), the metal industries (52.5%) and IT and telecommunications companies (51.9%). The most difficult figures to find, as
highlighted by the Excelsior Job Exchange, are IT, telematics and telecommunications technicians (68.1%), toolmakers, workers and craftsmen in the treatment of wood (67.9%), foundry workers,
welders, metal carpentry fitters (62.4%), craftsmen and specialised workers in construction finishing (62.3%) and specialists in mathematical, computer, chemical, physical and natural sciences
(61.9%). Among the actions taken by companies to cope with the difficulty of finding workers, the most common is to hire people with similar skills to those sought and then train them in the
company, a solution adopted in 38.6% of cases. While in 17.2% of cases, companies will deal with the difficulty of finding workers by offering a higher salary than the average contractual
conditions proposed for the profile sought.
In January, 73,000 contracts were offered to immigrant workers, equal to 16% of the total planned entries. The demand for immigrants increased by 27,000 units compared to last year
(+59.1%), when there were approximately 46,000 planned entries, with an increase of about 11 percentage points in the difficulty of finding them (47.0% compared to 36.3% 12 months ago).
Operational and business support services, personal services, transport and logistics are the tertiary sectors with the greatest demand for immigrant workers (each with about 11,000 planned
entries). With regard to industry, the construction and metallurgical industries stand out (respectively with about 8,000 and 5,000 planned entries).
The January forecasts are based on interviews conducted on a sample of 89,500 enterprises. The interviews were collected during the period 16 November 2021 – 1 December 2021.
Includes IT and telecommunications services, advanced business support services, operational business support services, financial and insurance services, transport, logistics and warehousing
services and media and communications services.
