Interpreting employment policy change in Italy since the 1990s: nature and dynamics (original) (raw)
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Law 183 of 2014, evocatively named the ‘Jobs Act’, has determined a deep change in the Italian industrial relations. Bringing at completion a reform process begun in the 1990s, the Jobs Act has introduced a new contract type- ‘contratto a tutele crescenti ’- implying a substantial downsize of obligation for workers ’ reinstatement in case of firms invalidly firing them. The new permanent contract is therefore deprived of the substantial re-quirements of an open-ended contract. The Law has also weakened the legal constraints for firms intending to monitor workers through electronic devices and introduced new incentives for firms using temporary contracts. This article frames the Jobs Act within the overall labour market reform process occurred in Italy since mid-nineties and provides a first evaluation of its impacts on the Italian labour market. Taking advantage of different data sources (administrative and labour force data) and concentrating the analysis over the period after the ...
Labour market reforms in Italy: evaluating the effects of the Jobs Act
Law 183 of 2014, evocatively named the ‘Jobs Act’, has determined a deep change in the Italian industrial relations. Bringing at completion a reform process begun in the 1990s, the Jobs Act has introduced a new contract type - ‘contratto a tutele crescenti’ - implying a substantial downsize of obligation for workers’ reinstatement in case of firms invalidly firing them. The new permanent contract is therefore deprived of the substantial requirements of an open-ended contract. The Law has also weakened the legal constraints for firms intending to monitor workers through electronic devices and introduced new incentives for firms using temporary contracts. This article frames the Jobs Act within the overall labour market reform process occurred in Italy since mid-nineties and provides a first evaluation of its impacts on the Italian labour market. Taking advantage of di↵erent data sources (administrative and labour force data) and concentrating the analysis over the period after the Jobs Act implementation, the investigation provides the following results: the expected boost in employment growth is not detected; an increase in the share of temporary contracts over the open-ended ones is observed; a raise of part-time contracts within the new permanent positions emerges. The analysis shows that the Jobs Act failed in achieving its main goals. We discuss the observed evidence evaluating the appropriateness of the Law 183/2014 in the present Italian economic context accounting, in particular, for the structural e↵ects of the recent crisis.
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Italy undertook a major reform of the labour market in 2014-2015 (Jobs Act). This paper provides a compendium of the key changes introduced. The analysis shows that the Jobs Act has contributed to bringing Italian labour market institutions more closely into line with international benchmarks and with the principles of flexicurity. Employment protection legislation for permanent contracts has been brought into line with that of major European partners, although it remains more restrictive than the OECD average. The focus of passive labour market policies has shifted from job to worker protection, which will facilitate the reallocation of workers to more productive occupations. The designed strengthening of active labour market policies would improve job matching and reduce structural unemployment, but thorough implementation remains the key factor for achieving this critical goal. Extending the new rules on employment protection legislation also to existing permanent contracts and t...
2020
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Industrial relations and the welfare state in Italy: Assessing the potential of negotiated change
West European Politics, 2007
The 1990s saw an important shift from long-term reform sclerosis in the Italian industrial relations and welfare state systems to important innovations, both in the mode of policy making (concertation via social pacts) and the content of reform (decentralization in the collective bargaining system and greater flexibilization of a highly-rigid labour market). After 1998, concertation weakened considerably once macro-economic convergence for EMU membership had been achieved, and contestation of the collective bargaining system and labour market regulation reappeared. This article seeks to explain the rise and demise of concertation over the past decade or so, and to assess the consequences of reform for wage bargaining and employment.
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