SVIMEZ RESEARCH ON THE NUMBER OF SOUTH WORKERS. THERE ARE 45 THOUSAND WORKERS OF THE LARGE COMPANIES IN SOUTHWORKING. COMPANIES ASK FOR INCENTIVES AND IRAP REDUCTION. BIANCHI (GENERAL MANAGER), OPPORTUNITY TO ATTRACT SOUTH TALENTS AND STOP THE ESCAPE BUT NEED SERVICES
Forty-five thousand employees have been working in smart working from the South for large companies in the Center-North since the beginning of the pandemic. These are the first results of a survey on southworking, carried out by Datamining on behalf of SVIMEZ on 150 large companies, with over 250 employees, operating in the various areas of the North Center in the manufacturing and services sectors. Data contained in the Svimez 2020 Report, which will be presented next Tuesday 24 November.
A figure of forty-five thousand workers which is equivalent to 100 High Speed trains filled exclusively by those returning from the Center North to the South. The figure could be just the tip of the iceberg. If we also take into account small and medium-sized enterprises (over 10 employees) that are much more difficult to detect, it is estimated that the phenomenon may have involved in the lockdown about 100 thousand southern workers. It is recalled in the study that currently there are about two million southern employees working in the Center-North. The survey also shows that, considering the companies that used smartworking in the first three quarters of 2020, either totally or in any case for over 80% of employees, about 3% saw their employees work in southworking.
Being able to offer southern workers employed in the Center-North the possibility of working from their respective territories of origin could constitute an unprecedented and very appropriate tool for the reactivation of those processes of accumulation of human capital blocked for too many years for the South and for the areas peripherals of the country.
The SVIMEZ Report proposes the identification of a target of potential beneficiaries of measures for the southworking. Interventions need to be concentrated on the objective of bringing young southern graduates (25-34 years old) back to the South who are employed in the Center-North. Using ISTAT data on the workforce and those relating to the survey on the professional integration of Italian graduates, it is estimated that the number of potentially interested young people would amount to about 60.000 young graduates.
The chapter of the SVIMEZ Report was created in collaboration with the South Working association Lavorare dal Sud founded by the young Palermo-born and south-worker Elena Militello. Based on the Association data the 85,3% of respondents would go or return to live in the South if they were allowed to, and if it were possible to keep their jobs remotely. It is, explains Militello in the SVIMEZ Report, a reality that already has 7.300 people registered on the page Facebook, with an audience of about 30 thousand people every month. From this research, conducted on a sample of 2 thousand workers, it emerges that about 80% are between 25 and 40 years old, have high degrees, mainly in Engineering, Economics and Law, and in 63% of cases, have a permanent employment contract. The project "South Working - Working from the South" in addition to the collaboration with SVIMEZ, thanks to the support and collaboration of CON IL SUD Foundation, enters the operational phase, with the start of the membership campaign and worker support network.
The SVIMEZ research also analyzes the advantages that the companies and workers surveyed have found in experimenting with southworking experiences and the policies that would be necessary for the dissemination of such experiences.
According to the Datamining survey, most of the companies interviewed believe that the main advantages of southworking are the greater flexibility in working hours and the reduction of fixed costs of physical locations. But, at the same time, he believes the biggest drawbacks are the company's loss of control over the employee; the necessary investment to be made by the company; cyber security problems.
Hence the need to adopt some policy tools to meet the demands of companies: tax or contribution-based incentives for companies in the Center-North that activate southworking, reduction of contributions, one-off tax credit for activated workstations, extend decrease in IRAP in the South for those who use southworking workers as a percentage of the workstations activated, creation of coworking areas, promoted by public administrations, close to transport infrastructures such as stations and airports, in which it is possible to share spaces, to develop relationships, creativity and reduce fixed and environmental costs.
Among the advantages that workers perceive the most when they are proposed to move to the southern areas, the main ones are the lower cost of living, followed by the greater possibility of finding low-cost housing. As for the disadvantages, there are lower quality health and transport services, fewer opportunities for a career and fewer services for the family.
During a meeting promoted by the Con il Sud Foundation, the President Carlo Borgomeo noted that "in recent months, the phenomenon has not only been given a name, with the South Working Association, but the work it has found in Foundation with the South broad consensus and a form of concrete support because we have always promoted processes that can make the territories of the South attractive. With other projects we have encouraged the transfer to the South of researchers from the North or from abroad. Because we firmly believe that attracting young talents to the South strengthens its social capital and therefore its development processes. South working is perfectly in line with our objectives ”.
SVIMEZ, with the launch of an Observatory on south-working, intends to "launch a package of measures to support southworking that could favor the reactivation of those preconditions for development that have been abandoned for too many years - he comments Luca Bianchi Director of SVIMEZ - Southworking could prove to be an interesting opportunity to interrupt the processes of de-accumulation of qualified human capital that began twenty years ago (about one million young people have left the South without returning) and which are irreversibly compromising the development of the southern areas and all peripheral areas of the country. To realize this new opportunity, however, it is essential to build around it a policy of attraction of skills with a package of interventions concentrated on four clusters: 1) tax and contribution-based incentives "; 2) creation of co-working spaces; 3) investments in the offer of services to families (nursery schools, full-time health services) 4) widespread digital infrastructures capable of bridging the gap between North / South and between urban and peripheral areas ".