The hunt for public jobs is back: in the first eight months of the year, competition notices were published for 288 thousand positions, for which two million applications were received. The Minister for Public Administration, Paul Zangrillo in a hearing at the Parliamentary Commission on simplification he recalled that in the next 5/6 years about one million workers will leave public offices towards retirement and work is underway to ensure an adequate turnover.
Already in 2023, 172 thousand people were hired and the same number should enter the PA in 2024 and 2025. For each position, on average, there are almost 7 candidates, but it must be considered that often a person applies for more positions and therefore the real aspirants for each position are fewer.
The time required to access a competition has also been reduced, from the moment you enter the competition, which, the minister explained, is now equal to 6 months compared to 780 days in the past.. A brake has been put on the so-called “scrolling” of the rankings of eligible candidates. “The scrolling of the rankings – said Zangrillo – makes sense if it happens within a defined deadline from when a competition was held. Otherwise it becomes a diabolical mechanism that on the one hand deceives people into thinking they can access the public administration and on the other does not allow us to work in a logic of guaranteeing the administration skills adequate to the times we live in”.
Public employment therefore remains very attractive even if the problem of recovering the purchasing power of wages after two years of strong inflation remains significant. For the three-year period 2022-2024, Aran has proposed increases between 110 and 193 euros for the central functions, i.e. for ministries, tax agencies, non-economic public bodies, respectively for operators and high-level professionals, equal to approximately 7.2% of the salary table.. This would mean recovering less than half of the price increase that occurred during the period.
However, Uilpa emphasizes that the increase actually available on the 2021 wage bill is equal to 5.78%, equal to just over a third of inflation. The contract remains on the rise because for the unions this increase is not acceptable. «The other categories, explains the secretary, Sandro Colombinihave closed their contracts recovering all the inflation. We hope that the Government will allocate the resources to do the same”.
The next meeting for the contract that concerns about 195 thousand workers is scheduled for October 8 and the provisions on holidays and sick leave and on smart working will also be refined, taking care of agile working. “to reconcile the needs of workers’ well-being and flexibility with the objectives of improving the public service, as well as with the specific technical needs of the activities”. Adherence to smart working will be consensual and voluntary and will be allowed “to all workers – whether they have a full-time or part-time employment relationship and regardless of whether they have been hired on a permanent or fixed-term contract” while no maximum number of days is set.