NEET is an acronym that stands for “Not in Education, Employment, or Training”. It refers to a person who is unemployed, not receiving an education or in vocational training. The classification of a person as NEET originated in the United Kingdom, but its use has spread, to varying degrees, to other countries and regions. The NEET category includes the unemployed (individuals without a job and seeking one), as well as individuals outside the labour force (without a job and not seeking one).

In 2019 Italian NEET is 23,8% of the total, it means nearly 2 million people. We are talking about 10 percentage points more than the EU average. It is an EU record.

NEET distribution is not homogeneous between regions, as often happens for many economic dimensions in our country. In the South, the incidence is more than double (33%) the North one (14.5%), and much more compared to the Centre (18.1%). This territorial disparity is independent of the level of education.

Garanzia Giovani

 To fight this emergency, in 2013 “Garanzia Giovani” was created.

It is part of the European Plan to defeat youth unemployment and its goal is to help NEET in job placement. The system provides a step through the ANPAL (Agenzia Nazionale Politiche Attive del Lavoro) to be then “redirected” in employment offices. Those will have to establish a training course and integration into the labour market.

Anyways, Garanzia Giovani is not giving the expected results. The recruitments carried out by this program in the last 2 years are 10 thousand in 1.5 million members. There are many problems: the lack of synergy between companies, the conformation of fragmented job offers, very different incentives from region to region, and the absence of a univocal national policy. There is also a poor investment in education policies (for example technical and professional institutes).

The active employment policies are ineffective and inefficient like Garanzia Giovani seems to be. While passive employment policies create low incentives, for example, Reddito di Cittadinanza, that may discourage even more the research of a job.

However, the program will be additionally reinforced after Covid-19, hoping to see a clear improvement.

Lost generation and lack of innovation

Unemployed youth has been called “a lost generation”: not only because of productivity lost but also because of the long-term direct and indirect impact unemployment has on young people and their families.

Unemployment has been said to affect earnings for about 20 years. Because they aren’t able to build up skills or experience during their first years in the workforce, unemployed youth see a decrease in lifetime earnings when compared to those who had steady work or those who were unemployed as an adult.

A lower salary can persist for 20 years following the unemployed period before the individual begins earning competitively to their peers. Widespread youth unemployment also leads to a socially excluded generation at great risk for poverty. For example, Spain saw an 18% increase in income inequality.

The economic crisis has led to a global decrease in competitiveness. “There is a risk of loss of talent and skills since a great number of university graduates are unable to find a job and to put their knowledge and capabilities into producing innovation and contributing to economic growth”.

Excluding young people from the labour market means lacking the divergent thinking, creativity, and innovation that they naturally offer. This fresh thinking is necessary for employers to foster new designs and innovative ideas.