Today, the Minister of Labour and Social Policies Marina Calderone addressed the audience of the Skills Summit 2024 in Brussels, promoted by the OECD in collaboration with the Belgian government.
The Italian Minister for Labour and Social Policies stressed that the Italian Presidency of the G7 intends to prioritise the issue of skills required to support the work supply chain, particularly in view of the challenges posed by the impact of artificial intelligence on the labour market and the ageing of the population.
During her speech, Minister Calderone outlined the public policies implemented in Italy to provide support for workers and the unemployed, both at the workplace and during transitions between different jobs, to further promote their right to skill retraining and to expand employability. A process initiated by reviewing the tools used to combat poverty that focus on training and learning to empower and promote the active inclusion of the more vulnerable. In actual fact, the beneficiaries of income support measures now have new tools (Work and Training Support and the Inclusion Allowance) and a specific IT portal (Siisl) where they can seek employment and retraining opportunities.
The Minister then provided an outline of the Plan for New Skills, included in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which aims to boost professional training, raise skill levels among people seeking employment and support job transitions. The plan is broken down into a series of initiatives and programmes, such as the Worker Employability Guarantee (GOL), which envisages specific paths for work placement, training and retraining of the long-term unemployed, young people, women and those over the age of 55.
Minister Calderone also recalled the importance of developing entrepreneurial skills to make it easier to set up start-ups with the help of the various programs promoted to support youth and female entrepreneurship. With reference to initiatives for young people, she then mentioned the need to boost the offer of dual training courses and the recent reform of the professional training system that has improved the effectiveness of higher education vocational training courses.
