No ‘dolce vita’ in sight for Italy’s youth

Renée Bertini

Rome: “You hear foreign people say: I’m moving to Italy because it’s a country where you can live better. There’s a problem: people dreaming of Italy only know the so-called ‘slow life’ that we are doing now, and they are clueless about the job market.”

Leonardo, 26, has been looking for a stable job since graduating in 2022. He’s one of the 1.5 million Italians under 30 years of age that statisticians refer to as ‘NEET’ – young people not in education, employment or training – disenfranchised by Italy’s inaccessible job market.

“I am what they call ‘working poor’, those who work but don’t earn enough to survive,” he says. “The last work I did was as a handyman, a jack-of-all-trades for a local organisation,” Leonardo adds. “My contract was for 15 hours of work per month, I’d do that in less than a week. I’d earn €600 per month before taxes.”

Italy is one of the few European countries without a minimum wage, and it has seen a rise in people living below the poverty line. Due to the lack of opportunities, young people are leaving Italy at one of the fastest rates in the European Union.

But what’s left for those who stay? Some people, like Leonardo, are just waiting to put the money aside to be able to afford to live abroad.

Others are trying to forge their own path. Alberto, 31, quit his 9-to-5 job to create a start-up called Trainect, joining a number of young entrepreneurs that is becoming smaller every year.

“I decided to quit my job at a time in my career when I had the chance to become a manager,” he remembers. “Of course, family and friends were waiting for it and celebrating it, but I really think that it’s important to do something that you like in your life.”

Over the last 10 years, Italy has lost 25 percent of its young entrepreneurs, who have been replaced by business-owners aged 70 or older.

“Italy, as everybody knows, is not the best place to start a start-up,” says Alberto, laughing. “I’m not thinking about leaving Italy. I keep thinking that there are several opportunities in being an Italian start-up. Of course, if you want to grow, the Italian market is not so fast. So we have already started thinking of expanding our business in other countries,” he concludes.