Civil servants, they grow again (even if they don’t like the state job anymore) – Corriere.it

Public employees are growing again, but their average age remains high while 2 winners out of 10 give up their jobs. These are the apparently contradictory results that emerge from the research “Let’s start from people” presented at the opening of the Pa 2023 Forum. The new trends in the labor market (from smart working to the different and more selective approach of young people to work) involve also the public sector, which in any case presents itself as an important pool of employment opportunities, considering that in the next ten years one million public employees will retire, ie about one in three. Even greater opportunities for workers with technical and specialist profiles, of which there is also a strong shortage in the public sector, especially after the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which provides for investments of almost 200 billion by 2026.

Fewer candidates per competition

In 2022 civil servants reached 3 million 260 thousand, with an increase of 0.8% compared to 2021. This is the highest level in the last ten years. The result of the unblocking of the turnover and the resumption of competitions, after the pandemic, which revealed the need to strengthen the public administration in various sectors. In the face of the greater number of competitions, however, a decrease in candidates and an increase in renunciations can be observed. From the beginning of 2021 to June 2022, just 40 candidates presented themselves for each post advertised, a fifth compared to the 200 average in the previous two years, when, however, there was less competition available. A growing phenomenon is that of renunciations. On average, it concerns two out of ten winners, with peaks of 50% among those who have won a competition involving fixed-term contracts.

The costs of the rent

Many renunciations are due to the unavailability of moving from the South to the North, where life is more expensive and the rent alone can absorb up to 50% of the salary. Others depend on the fact that the person has won several competitions (affects 26% of the candidates) and chooses the most advantageous one for him in terms of stable position, proximity to residence, salary. Furthermore, underlines Calo Mochi Sismondi, president of the Forum, “today workers give less importance to permanent jobs, in favor of aspects such as well-being, motivation, training, smart working”. In 2021 there were more than 150,000 recruits by competition, but 8.6% were already civil servants. Of the posts advertised between the end of 2021 and March 2023, 72% involved permanent contracts, 24% fixed-term contracts and 4% collaboration assignments.

No young people in ministries

Despite the recovery in hiring, the average age of permanent personnel is 50.7 years. In 2002 it was 44.2. The average age of employment has risen in twenty years from 29.3 to 34.3 years. Employees under the age of thirty are 4.8%. In ministries it drops to 0.7% and in schools to 0.3%. According to the president of Aran, Antonio Naddeo, to encourage the entry of young people it is necessary “to reactivate the apprenticeship: 50% training and 50% work, and then transformation into a permanent contract”.