“I have a family and three children in the UK, this wouldn’t be possible in Italy.” Lucia, a 37-year-old Italian nurse who has lived in the English Channel for years, tells the story. In Italy, where demographic winter and wages had been stagnant for 30 years, he had the courage years ago to change direction and choose a country that could give him a future. And we are all the losers.

According to estimates, training a nurse stuck in 2014 costs us at least 22 thousand 500 euros, while an investment of at least 150 thousand euros is required for a specialist doctor. But every year, thousands of people leave public health services and the country, heading for nations that can care for them.

“Italy ranks second today after Romania in the migration of doctors and nurses to other European countries,” said an Italian doctor who lived abroad and whom I recently interviewed. It’s a dynamic that’s not just limited to the health professions.

We lost 79 thousand graduates in ten years and exceeded 2 billion euros

The premise here is that graduates are few in Italy. Only 26.8 percent of Italians aged 30 to 34 have a university degree, compared to the OECD average of 40 percent.

The state spends an average of around 5,400 Euros a year to train a graduate. In the case of a master’s degree, we reach an average figure of 27 thousand euros for the entire academic path. In other words, the total cost of approximately 79 thousand Italian graduates residing abroad permanently was more than 2 billion Euros. These are approximate calculations, of course; We don’t know how many go to private universities (these are also funded by public money) or how long the degree course actually takes for each one. But they do serve to give an idea of ​​how much the so-called “brain drain” abroad is costing us as a society.

While there are many reasons for moving, one immediately stands out. Almalaurea also reveals this in the latest available report for 2022.

Graduates who stay in Italy for five years after receiving their qualifications receive an average monthly salary of 600 euros less than their foreign counterparts. In the case of a first level diploma the difference increases to almost a thousand euros. These are important differences that influence, for example, the choice whether to buy a house, have children or, more simply, consume more, thereby stimulating the entire economy.

In Italy, young people (or “contrarians”), again due to economic conditions, are dragged into a kind of “permanent adolescence” period that sees the family of origin as the main source of well-being. Yes, because we are also an EU country where so-called “involuntary part-time” (unsolicited and unselected) work is most common and where fixed-term contracts exist for workers under 30.

“I was 27 years old and I found myself asking my mother for money to go out in the evening. There I said to myself: This is not possible, there is something wrong here,” says Mattia, who has been living in Germany for ten years. . Today he is a teacher and earns more than twice as much as his Italian colleagues.

However, schools in Italy continue to continue thanks to the good will of 200 thousand temporary workers for whom the State saves a large amount of money every year. And it continues to profit from this by demanding expensive qualified courses. It then comes naturally to ask ourselves what kind of country we have chosen to be.

What types of studies have increased in recent years?

When we look at the statistics data, we see that the number of employed people has increased by more than one million in the last decade. And, as the data below shows, the last two recorded a significant increase in employment (although the first signs of a trend reversal were noted in January). Everything is fine? Partially.

In fact, data only gains meaning when related to others. Let’s try this exercise too. Wages for Italian workers have remained virtually stagnant for more than 30 years, unprecedented in the world. Measured by real purchasing power, Italians earn on average close to $10,000 a year compared to other workers in the OECD area.

However, according to the latest INPS data for 2022, more than 3 and a half million employees earn less than fifteen thousand euros gross per year. We are talking about about 30% of Italian employees.

Meanwhile, the productivity of our economy has increased very little since the 1990s. In 2021, our production system recorded a difference of 25.5% compared to other G7 countries.

By connecting the dots we can draw some conclusions. We live in a country that is stuck 30 years ago and has long stopped growing and investing in its future. We are transforming, albeit very slowly, from a former industrial power into a low-cost labor depot where profits are made by systematically reducing the cost and quality of labor. Moreover, when it comes to public administration, the State is based solely on the systematic precarization of workers, and this mainly affects young people.

But the jobs available on the market are mostly low-skilled, produce little added value, and often earn starvation wages. The demographic winter that many point to as a problem in this context is just one of many symptoms of a disease in which the “youngest” make do only with the savings accumulated by those who came before them.

But these are facts that are not mentioned by any politician who publicly displays data on employment and the growth of the Italian economy.

A piece of advice that isn’t necessary for everyone, but especially for “government patriots”. Take some more public transport from time to time, chat in a supermarket or a bar away from Montecitorio. At least to get used to that ugly thing called “reality” again.