Italian Millennials and the difficulties they face

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Author: Future Manager Research Center

Italy, at present, is facing a multitude of challenges, such as a slow economic recovery, political instability and high unemployment. There is also a large generation gap between the wealthy and retired, with many young people struggling for employment. Interesting, also, the status of the so-called Millennials. Let’s find out more.

Everyone is trying to reach Millennials out, to understand their behaviours. Big companies are observing them from some quite time now so they can understand how to attract and retain the most innovative ones; they want to collaborate with millennials in finding new ways of doing business.

Millennials are a specific category, they are the ones always at the edge, always trying to find new ways to get inspired, they base their communication on images rather than words, they are fast, innovative and always informed about the latest technology or apps that can ease they life out.

Even so, researches demonstrate that their situation, in Italy, is quite precarious. They feel like the “last ones” of the social stratification: they do not feel appreciated, they do not get the credits they deserve, and they feel exploited in a labour market that has the lowest salaries in Europe, in a country that does’ not offer engaging projects, and that is not innovative enough.

Millennials are conscious about all this and these are the reasons why they prefer to go abroad to find new opportunities, to feel satisfied, to build up their future, to feel like they are participating somehow in changing the world and at the moment, based on their opinions, Italy cannot offer all this.

There are thousands of youngs that, every year, leave Italy to go abroad and, usually, the ones that depart are the most talented ones, the ones that hope to find abroad a working environment that can stimulated their intellect.

The innate characteristics of the Millennials is celebrating their success, living in a more careless way, feeling winners all the time and this is what builds up their success. However, the results of a recent research demonstrate that only 4 up to 10 young people feel this way. What affects, the most, their life-style and success are two major factors: financial difficulty (51%), lack of meritocracy in the labour market (41%), on trial also the lack of stimulus and the educational path that is too much based on factual knowledge.

This is becoming a real problem for the country since the government spends time and investments in education not having than a return. Millennials leave for better perspectives and Italy loses competences, necessary for its progress

What millennials are looking for is a labour market that recognises their efforts and gives them credit for their job. A labour market where meritocracy is the foundation, based on which a person can grow professionally or not. In order to attract and retain talents within the millennials category, the Italian labour market should think of innovative strategies.  It is important to keep up with the times and technology by offering on-demand solutions but it is fundamental that they are simple to use. In addition, Millennials are not so young any more, thery are not single city-dweller on the contrary, they status has changed. The government and the labour market should start to think about them as Parents (Parennials) for example. Equipping Millennials with tool to handle new challenges (like parenting) is essential for the market to remain engaged with this target audience.