Apprenticeship training in Italy: a cost-effective model for firms?

Muehleman, Samuel and Wolter, Stefan and Joho, Eva (2018) Apprenticeship training in Italy: a cost-effective model for firms? UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

In times of rapid technological progress and increasing digitalisation in many areas of work and life, it is more important than ever to provide young people with the best possible skills for their entry into the world of work. It is certainly important to provide them with a solid theoretical knowledge base. However, it is also important to impart practical skills to ensure that they are able to adapt to the needs of the labour market. Post-school education in Italy, while providing good formal skills in this respect, is not sufficiently responsive to the needs of the labour market. With this in mind, dual training models have become politically more attractive in Italy and are already being implemented. But despite political support and the reforms in recent years, the popularity of dual training models has hardly increased. From an international point of view, this development is hardly surprising. On the one hand, interest in dual vocational training is increasing: learning a trade at two locations – in a company and at a part-time vocational school – means that apprentices gain valuable professional experience while they are still training, which enables a smoother transition to the labour market. As a result, there is less youth unemployment and a better supply of skilled labour for industry. On the other hand, reforms of this kind often encounter a major obstacle when it comes to practical implementation: a lack of commitment by the companies, especially in countries where an in-company apprenticeship tradition is absent. First and foremost, companies see training as an operational loss: why pay to train an apprentice when qualified employees can be recruited directly on the labour market? What businesses often fail to see is that in-house training does not merely incur costs, but that it also results in monetary benefits, and sometimes in net profits before training has even been completed. However, the question is: under which conditions? The costs and benefits of training are not invariables, they depend on a wide of variety of parameters such as the level of apprentices’ pay, the industry in question, the duration of training, recruiting costs for qualified skilled workers on the labour market – not to mention the quality of the training course. To examine the situation, this study uses simulations to investigate how these parameters would have to be designed in Italy in order to make dual training more attractive for Italian businesses. The conclusions derived in this report are intended to assist Italian policymakers and employers to make more evidence-based decisions, to ensure that Italy’s labour force investments are more likely to yield positive returns.

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