The labour market has become increasingly selective

Welcome back and I hope you all enjoyed your holidays!

There is nothing new in stating that the Spring season we endured this year had a heavy impact on all of us. So the August holiday period – which at MICROingranaggi we maintained as the standard two weeks – has had a regenerating effect for all concerned.

I remember that on the official resumption date in May (hence immediately after the lockdown), we had to reschedule our entire production plans, obviously giving priority to the orders received before the health emergency broke out followed by those received during the lockdown. A long and complex job, involving discussions (often exhausting) with some of our customers on the new delivery schedules established. Almost as if everything that had just happened and was still going on wouldn’t have an impact on the daily operations of a company.

So, hoping that the terrible experience of the past months is now something of the past,

I want to get back to work with a positive thought, linked to a book I read recently.

‘It’s not a job for the elderly. When a passion becomes a business’ is a book I particularly liked because it is the synthesis of how to be creative and develop any type of job or business, if you have the right incentive. In fact, the author of the book – Riccardo Pozzoli – invents crafts that do not even exist yet and is an excellent example of how nowadays the economy is able completely disengage from traditional jobs.

Let me explain. When I was in school, those who were studying Accountancy ended up inevitably becoming solely and exclusively an accountant or an office clerk. Those who studied mechanics, ended up becoming a mechanic or bodywork technician. And so on. Those were the jobs available, and that was it. You couldn’t do any others. There were a lot of open positions, they were easy to find, well paid, but they were all very similar.
Today it is a completely different market. There are jobs – often linked to digital technologies (although not always) – which are in fact a clear demonstration that bright and talented youngsters (and Riccardo Pozzoli, in my opinion, is definitely one of them) can go on to do great things.

Well: the book refers specifically to this category of youngsters whom I admire considerably.
On the one hand, in fact, they say that today it is much more difficult for youngsters to find new jobs, and there is certainly some truth behind this statement. But this applies – in my opinion – mainly to those who stubbornly maintain a mindset that is something of the past, way past the time limits. A mindset that once upon a time was feasible, but not nowadays.

With the right mindset, the right ambitions, the right incentive, the right skills and, naturally, also a great desire to work and face new challenges, in my opinion, the prospects today are far superior than those available in the past.