I am 531 thousand workers wanted by companiesand (with a fixed-term contract lasting more than one month or a permanent one) for the month of September, 7 thousand more (+1.3%) compared to what was planned a year ago. For the entire September-November 2023 quarter, expected hires are just over 1.4 million, up 1.9% compared to the same period in 2022. The difficulty in recruiting reported by companies continues to grow, involving 48% of planned hires, up by 5 percentage points compared to twelve months ago, with shares between 60% and 70% for many technical-engineering and specialized workers.
This is the scenario outlined by Excelsior Information System Bulletincreated by Unioncamere in collaboration with Anpal.
It is large companies (with over 250 employees) and small companies (10-49 employees) that completely cover the overall increase compared to 2022 in planned hiring (respectively, with +4,400 and +4,300 in the month and +11,000 and +12,000 in the quarter); while smaller companies (1-9 employees) expect a decline in hiring for September (-3,000). The manufacturing sector as a whole plans 99,000 entries in September 2023 (similar figure compared to 12 months ago) and 275,000 entries in the quarter (-0.2%).
Among the main manufacturing sectors, we highlight the forecasts for mechatronics with 25,000 contracts in September and 69,500 thousand in the quarter and for metallurgy (20 thousand and 55 thousand, respectively). The food industries (13,000 and almost 40,000) and the fashion industries (11,000 and 33,000) are further away. Construction plans 60,500 hires in September and 196,000 in the September-November period (+3,500 in the month and +15,000 in the quarter).
For the service companies 371,000 employment contracts are expected for September (+1% compared to 12 months ago) and almost 989,000 in the quarter (+1.3% on the same period in 2022). Positive forecasts especially for personal services (111,000 contracts in the month and 238,000 in the quarter), thanks in particular to hiring in the sector of education and private training services, and transport and logistics (44,000 and 126,000), while they are at lower levels compared to the same period of 2022, the hiring forecasts for commercial companies (59,000 in the month equal to -2.2% compared to the previous year and 185,000 in the quarter equal to -0.8%) and those in tourism (69,000, i.e. -7.3% on 2022 and 193,000 equal to -2.2%).
The fixed term it is confirmed as the most proposed contractual form with 284,000 units, equal to 53.4% of the total. This is followed by permanent contracts (108,000), supply contracts (57,000), other non-employee contracts (32,000), apprenticeship contracts (26,000), other employee contracts (14,000) and collaboration contracts (11,000 ).
Companies declare difficulties in finding over 252,000 hires in September (48% of the total), confirming the “lack of candidates” as the main cause with a share of 31.7%, while “inadequate preparation” stands at 12%.. The professional groups with the highest mismatch are specialized workers (64.2% share of hard-to-find income), operators of fixed and mobile systems (53.2%) and technical professions (49.5%).
In particular, the most difficult figures to find are the toolmakers, workers and artisans of wood treatment (74.1% and a peak of 87.7% in the North West), the specialized workers involved in finishing constructions (73.6%, with a maximum in the North East of 80.9%), artisan mechanics, fitters, repairers, maintainers of fixed and mobile machines (73.1%, 76.7% in the North West) and blacksmiths, tool builders (72 %, but up to 81.5% in the Center).
Also difficult to find technicians in the management of production processes of goods and services (67.5%, which reaches 74.5% in the central regions), technicians in the engineering field (64.2%, with a maximum of 66.5% in the North East ), health technicians (58.9%, 65.6% in the Centre) and commercial distribution technicians (58.8%, with a peak of 68.3% in the North East).
The use of foreign labor which goes from 95 thousand admissions last year, equal to 18.2% of total revenue, to the current 108,000 admissions, equal to 20.4% of total revenue (+13 thousand contracts; +13.6%).
The ones that make most use of foreign labor are operational support services for businesses and people (35.2% of planned revenues are reserved for foreign labour), transport, logistics and warehousing services (32.7%), the metallurgical industries and metal products (25.8%), accommodation, catering and tourism services (25.7%) and finally the food industries (25.1%).
At a territorial level, companies in the North Eastern regions show greater difficulties in finding them, where 53.4% of the staff sought are difficult to find, a considerably higher share than that recorded in the South and Islands (43.5%) and in the Centre. (45.9%), while the value in the North West (47.4%) remains close to the average. In particular, for the main regions in terms of hiring flow the following quotas of recruitment difficulties emerge: in Lombardy 122 thousand contracts and recruitment difficulties equal to 46.5%, in Lazio 56,000 and 38%, for Veneto 52,000 and 54 .4%, in Emilia-Romagna 49 thousand and 51.9% and, finally, in Campania 42,000 and 41%.