Avoiding work: why (even in Italy) many workers quit their jobs?

In the first nine months of 2022, there were one million 660,000 job cuts recorded in Italy. Compared to the same period in 2021, the increase cannot be ignored, equal to 22%. The data comes from the Department of Labor’s quarterly notices. The number represents employment relationships terminated due to resignations, not the number of workers involved.

Between January and September 2022, there were 557,000 layoffs, a 47% increase compared to 379,000 in 2021 when there was a lockdown due to the pandemic. Among the reasons for terminating the employment relationship, the preference of the person to leave the job voluntarily after the termination of the fixed-term employment contract takes the second place.

Why are workers resigning?

The phenomenon of “big resignations” that arose in the United States during the pandemic therefore took root in Italy as well. But what drives workers to resign at a time when economic stability is so difficult? One of the reasons seems to be to seek a job that provides better economic treatment and career opportunities. Job leavers are not looking for a life on a tropical island vacation; instead of “making a living”, he dreams of making a career with a better salary and working conditions that lead to a more comfortable and less stressful life.

Joelle Gallesi, managing director of Hunters Group, a recruiting and selection company, recently commented on the explosion in resignations recorded in the second quarter of last year, saying that “progress towards the new could have been the response to long months spent in quarantine or to one’s work, time and office. emerges from their home space, an unstoppable shift in perception of their space, or perhaps the natural and human desire for the new that has been instilled in those who have not had the opportunity”. But the expert cautioned that “finding the explanation for these data” is not easy. Also, as Reverse’s CEO Daniele Bacchi pointed out last February, other variables will need to be explored as well, “such as the age groups or geographic regions that affect resignations the most.”

In any case, 40% of the profiles acted for the prospect of professional and economic growth, and 23% for the mission, according to a survey of a thousand candidates who have chosen to take a new professional path by the Hunters Group in recent months. and 11% for the new reality’s institutional values ​​and educational opportunity. It is true that there are also a considerable number of those who want to repent and return after resignation.

According to Tania Scacchetti of CGIL, the phenomenon of massive resignations “can have very different explanations: on the one hand, it may be positively linked to the desire to bet on a more satisfying or more ‘agile’ workplace after the pandemic, on the other hand, there are other, particularly those that are already moving forward. For those without a job, it may also be linked to increased fatigue due to a lack of participation and professional development on the part of companies”.

Conte: “We need to restructure the labor market”

Giuseppe Conte, leader of 5 Stars, was not surprised. “The current logic of the job market, fueled by the drumbeats of narrow-minded politics, imposes the rhetoric that a job should be accepted no matter what. In any case, even with low wages. Cruelty skills are trampled, shifts are grueling, contracts are just a part of it. monthly, leaving no room for personal and family life”.

According to the former prime minister, “The first emergency for Italy is to completely restructure its labor market. We are behind the rest of Europe. While minimum wages are rising in other countries, we continue to reject even the minimum threshold that determines dignity. While other countries try to reduce working hours to increase productivity, There is constant competition to create motivating work environments and stable employment prospects abroad, we wage war on “dignity rule” and promote brutal precarity.