Can We Stranieri Help Italy’s Economy?

An article appeared on the Time.com website this week, and was tweeted by many of my Twitter buddies, a few of whom are young Italians in other countries themselves. An article like this is why I am continuously re-evaluating my desire to move my family to Italy.

The article is called, “Arrivederci, Italia: Why Young Italians Are Leaving”. It is a compelling and disturbing read about what so many of us have suspected in the economy of our beloved Italy.

An excerpt from the article, by Stephan Faris:
In an open letter to his son published last November, Pier Luigi Celli, director general of Rome's LUISS University, wrote, "This country, your country, is no longer a place where it's possible to stay with pride ... That's why, with my heart suffering more than ever, my advice is that you, having finished your studies, take the road abroad. Choose to go where they still value loyalty, respect and the recognition of merit and results."
The letter, published in Italy's La Repubblica newspaper, sparked a session of national hand-wringing. Celli, many agreed, had articulated a growing sense in his son's generation that the best hopes for success lie abroad.

I suppose that this is no surprise. The Italian job boards are slim pickings these days, and every job posting is very specific about what the company are looking for (right down to the age range of the worker, which is standard practice in Italy). Mysteriously, despite the very deep pool of unemployed workers, it seems that many of these positions go unfilled for a long time. This article helps to explain why those jobs sit there so long.

I have a dear friend who is a business owner in Milan, and she and I have spoken often over the years about the exorbitant and prohibitive expenses of employing people – even of hiring an employee in the first place. The Italian business owner is very heavily regulated (you think we have a lot of tax laws in the US? Hah!) and all but penalized for her/his entrepreneurship, initiative and willingness to pay people to produce. Therefore, business owners are not quick to take on new full time employees. Work must stay at a “reasonable” pace so that it can eventually be done by whatever staff they do have. Businesses don’t grow because they can’t afford to take on additional risk of employees that were hired but aren’t performing well, because it is legally difficult to fire the ineffective workers.

Taxes paid by the employer for each employee are astonishingly high – mostly, I speculate, to help the government pay all of those benefits that have been promised to the older generations over the last 70 years. The benefits that the older generations fight tooth and nail to keep, as mentioned in the article, that have almost completely disabled their political system and bankrupted a nation.

The employment laws make it difficult to hire and fire on the merit of the individual. The Italian economy has protected the worker very well – a full time job can be a job for life if you want it, unless you have done something criminally wrong or the business closes. The problem now is getting in the door in the first place, in a job befitting one’s qualifications, for a salary that can help to sustain growth of new families.

So, how can we help fix this? How can we keep Italian talent in Italy where it can help to revive the greatness of the country? Is it up to the foreign entrepreneur that has the gumption to deal with the Italian bureaucracy to open new businesses there and change things from the inside? Or do we have to let things get worse until the government begins to encourage the Italian business owners?

“Visions of Italy” Draws in the Uninitiated

I was amused this weekend when my parents showed me a program that they had recorded off of PBS. It was Visions of Italy – Southern Style. It was amusing because my husband and I have been talking excitedly – OK, perhaps obsessively – about Italy for over ten years now and own an entire shelf-full of beautiful Italy DVDs that we use to satisfy our cravings for the place until we can get back again. We have offered many times over the years to bring DVDs to show particular cities we have visited, but they have not seemed particularly interested. I can certainly understand; I, too, get turned-off when folks insist that I must see some thing or some place. I prefer to discover these gems on my own, and the objects of someone else’s affections seldom live up to the hype.

However, the Visions of Italy– Southern Style program got their attention entirely on its own. The aerial photography was captivating, and it highlighted the grandeur of the sections of Roma and further south that they chose to display. What my parents seemed to enjoy the most was the serene way that this program let the scenery do most of the talking. They understandably have little patience for the incessant chatter of many absurdly lucky travel program hosts, and just wanted to see the pictures and hear the sounds. This program is sparsely narrated by a calm, quiet female voice (Franca Barchiesi) with a lovely accent – a pleasure to listen to, and especially soothing in small, elegantly-scripted doses.

Mom and Dad were so charmed by the Southern Style program that they scheduled their DVR to record the Northern Style program coming up this week on the same station. All of the sudden, the lure of Italy becomes clear and the desire to see more of it comes from inside them – not from their overly-effusive, well-meaning offspring.

To enjoy this spectacular series yourself whenever you wish, I have included a link to the Visions of Italy DVD set below.

Enjoy!