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PRESS RELEASE
Two research reports on the PTA INAPP project Social Welfare 2022-2024 Published
INAPP: “IN ITALY MORE THAN 4 MILLION WORKERS WITHOUT A ‘LIFELINE’ IN CASE OF CRISIS”
With the emergency phase now over, universal, albeit differentiated, income protection measures have also come to an end. Non-standard workers (contingent, occasional, platform workers, seasonal workers) , older workers in long unemployment, self-employed individuals, unemployed jobseekers and persons who have terminated their health insurance benefits, remain uncovered.
FADDA: ‘These workers cannot be ‘forgotten’ by the system and the labour market, that is why we need to think of new support measures for all those who do not have a social ‘parachute’ either at the end of a work experience or during the search for employment.’
Rome, 6 December 2023 – During the pandemic, there were more than 6 million beneficiaries of wage integration measures in Italy, for an expenditure of 18 billion euros. Additionally, there were 4 million beneficiaries of welfare benefits not covered by the insurance system with a total expenditure of 6 billion euros. However, these measures were not adjusted once the emergency phase of the pandemic was over. This does not mean leveraging the same measures for companies with different characteristics, as was done through a greater extension of wage integrations. Rather, as the ILO (International Labour Organisation) argues, by putting in place differentiated measures (insurance and welfare) to respond to the increasingly fragmented and digitised labour markets. If not done, more than 4 million non-standard workers, people over 52 years of age, contingent workers, self-employed individuals, employed jobseekers, platform workers and ‘working poor’ will remain uncovered in the event of a crisis.
This emerged from two research reports of the PTA INAPP project Social Welfare 2022-2024 that were presented today during the conference ‘Social Protection of Workers at the Crossroads’.
“During the health emergency, the system moved towards the principle of differentiated universalism, as in addition to an increase in wage integrations, welfare subsidies were provided for specific categories of workers (self-employed, contingent, seasonal, occasional workers). After the pandemic phase,’ said Professor Sebastiano Fadda, Inapp president, ‘while the insurance extension was consolidated, welfare benefits went completely lost. Thus, the emergency phase has only partially affected the extension of the ordinary system, increasing the coverage of traditional insurance schemes, while welfare programmes in the event of job loss for all those subjects excluded from the insurance-contributory measures were lost’.
HOW ITALY ‘PROTECTS’ ITS WORKERS
After the COVID-19 pandemic, in Italy, there was a greater extension of wage integration measures, however, welfare benefits were not maintained post pandemic. In particular, there was an incorrect interpretation of the principle of differentiated universalism, which does not mean extending the same insurance measures to all types of enterprises but building a workforce protection system based on programmes of diversified nature, integrated and distinct from minimum income schemes. As such, a truly universal workers’ protection scheme is still absent in Italy, still too anchored to substantial categorical insurance schemes and to a minimum income scheme in the process of being profoundly redefined, with no other form of welfare protection in the labour market to separate the two programmes, so distant in nature, function and conditionality.
HOW THEY ‘PROTECT WORKERS’ IN OTHER COUNTRIES
In Spain, an articulated system of unemployment benefits (insurance and welfare) guarantees a higher level of coverage: 85 percent of subjects in an unemployment condition in 2020. Furthermore, it acts as a filter for non-standard work and long-term unemployment before they become beneficiaries of minimum income schemes. A similar scenario is found in France: there, too, there is a contributory social safety net and a welfare benefit involving about 400,000 beneficiaries in 2020. In addition, the French system provides income support and an intensive training plan for the working poor, which involves more than 4 million individuals in 2020, as well as support for housing assistance. It is evident that also in the French case, the articulation of the income protection system of the labour force leads to lower access of employable persons to minimum income schemes. The analyses also show how the implementation of a dynamic social protection system for workers, centred on the principle of differentiated universalism, guarantees the flexibility of the system.
“Today, workforce protection interventions concern social policies and income support in cases of poverty and unemployment,” concluded the Inapp president. “We should improve the system to extend protection also to ‘non-standard’ work, such as self-employed, contingent, part-time or platform work. These workers cannot be ‘forgotten’ by the social protection system, and this is precisely why we need to think about support measures for all those figures who today do not enjoy any ‘parachute’ at the end of often occasional and brief work experiences. This would allow the final build of a universal social protection system for workers capable of effectively facing the new challenges of an increasingly fragmented labour market and composed of often discontinuous, atypical work positions linked to rapid and profound structural changes.
The two reports can be accessed here:
https://oa.inapp.org/xmlui/handle/20.500.12916/3997
https://oa.inapp.org/xmlui/handle/20.500.12916/4077
For further information:
GIANCARLO SALEMI journalist cell: 347 6312823
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