Hello and a happy 2017 to everyone!
I want to start this new year with a controversial question:
Are foreigners actually taking our jobs?
Why am I asking this? Let’s go back a moment.
At the beginning of each year we do the maths, we analysis past events, what might change and possibly improve, and so on. Looking back at 2016 we can’t help but think of certain economic and political upheavals, closely related to each other, that are making us reflect a great deal, especially in view of what the practical consequences might be that will affect nearly all of us first hand.
I am referring, for example, to the United Kingdom’s Brexit or to the election of Donald Trump in the United States. These two choices are today defined as “populist” and that many studies largely attribute to fears of an economic (even before social) nature, with the problem of unemployment at the top.
It goes without saying that in times of crisis, fear increases. The fear of losing jobs and of the risk of no longer being able to find work. This results in a physiological need to find a scapegoat to battle against. A scapegoat which on the one side takes the appearance of smart machines which some say will cause mass unemployment and on the other that of the foreigner who enters our country to take our jobs. It is precisely on this second point that I would like to focus in this post because I see that in Italy, as indeed in many other countries, this fear is somewhat ingrained.
Ours is one of the countries with the largest number of emigrants to almost every part of the world: to Belgium, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia… That’s why I’m particularly irritated that it is actually the Italian that is concerned about who is looking for work in our country. Whoever comes to Italy stays if there is work or if they find it, otherwise they make plans to leave or they don’t come here in the first place. Therefore, if these people have a job, it means that the work was available to begin with.
If we want to discuss the merits of why the work is available while there are Italians who are unemployed (only yesterday, Istat published the discouraging data relating to youth unemployment in November 2016: 39.4%), then this is another matter entirely. In a post from last year I wrote:
“the problem of unemployment in light of a substantial number of companies seeking personnel is, in my opinion, the lack of synchronization between supply and demand. […] I don’t mean that following our aspirations is wrong, quite the opposite! […] There are many who prefer to stay at home doing nothing rather than going out and being a mundane worker. And this is where, in my opinion, they are mistaken…”.
This is a topic that I would reiterate but which has nothing to do with “the foreigner who is taking away our jobs”.
It is a fact that there are jobs that Italians don’t want to do and this applies to many sectors. Agriculture: the Italian is on the tractor while the foreigner works the land. In industry: there are companies that even employ up to 60% of non-EU workers because they are unable to find Italian personnel. And the situation is fairly similar in construction. The labour market in our country continues to demonstrate a clear separation between “Italian professions” and “foreign professions”.
At around the middle of last year, the president of INPS [Italian national institute of social insurance] Tito Boeri reported that in terms of social contributions immigrants pay more than what they receive in pensions.
If instead we want to talk about the fact that there are laws that better protect the rights of people who perhaps are undeserving if only because they have never paid taxes in Italy, then this is another matter and I would agree. There are many things that aren’t right but that’s another story…
