It continues in Italy voluntary resignation phenomenon even without the parachute of a new contract. A trend that, although it still appears distant, in terms of dimensions and extensions, from that “Great Resignation” which in the United States is putting businesses and the labor market in great difficulty and which, with the pandemic emergency, has seen the voluntary abandonment of work by millions of employed people grow month after month, driven by the most diverse reasons, begins to also cause concern in our country. In the first nine months of 2022 – according to quarterly data on mandatory communications to the Ministry of Labor – there are over 1.6 million workers who have resigned, a numberor up 22% compared to the same period in 2021, when more than 1.3 million were registered.
Identikit of resigned workers
It is above all who decide to leave the job young (43.2% of the total), a low schooling (54,4%) e residents in the North (56.4%). The identikit is traced by the survey “Resignations in Italy between crisis, recovery and new approach to work”, carried out by Labor Consultant Studies Foundation on the basis of data collected between 2019 and 2021. In 43.2% of cases these are young people under the age of 35 and in 13.1% of very young people, under the age of 24. If this figure is attributable to greater attractiveness e propensity for mobility that the
young workers have on the market compared to more adults, it is also striking to find the significant share of resigners in the more adult groups, in which the employment condition tends to be more stable: 18.1% are between 45 and 54 years old while 16.1% are between 45 and 54 years old 4% over 55 years old. At a geographical level, the phenomenon tends to photograph the distribution of workers, with 56.4% of resignations taking place in the North, 23.7% in the South and 19.9% in the Centre, while affects the incidence among workers with low educational qualifications: as many as 54.4% of workers who resigned in the first nine months of 2021 have an educational qualification lower than a high school diploma; only 14.5% have a university degree while 31.1% have a higher education diploma.
The number of resignations of women is increasing
Se in 2021 the resignation between the men – reflecting the gender ratio in the labor market – were the majority (58.7% against 41.3% of women), in the third quarter of 2022 out of 562,258 workers who resigned, 317,734 were men and 244,524 women, or +22,717 women and +12,257 men. In the economic comparison between the second and third quarters of 2022 – according to the data reported by Il Sole 24 ore on the basis of the mandatory communications of the Ministry of Labor – there are more resignations among women (+4,386) than among men (-25,915).
Trends in the post-pandemic period
The comparison between the first three quarters of 2019 and 2021 highlights a increase in resignations especially among the traditionally less interested segments from the phenomenon, in particular the adultsi graduates and all skilled jobs. In fact, against an average growth of 13.8% of workers who choose to leave their jobs, among the 45-55 year olds and the over 55 year olds the value rises to 17% and 21.5% respectively. Even among graduates the phenomenon is more pronounced (17.7% against 12.9% of high school graduates and 13.3% of those with lower educational qualifications), while at a geographical level the case of the South stands out, where between 2019 and 2021 there was an increase in workers who resigned by 18.2% against 14.3% in the North and 8% in the Centre. If on the one hand, the explosion of the phenomenon seems driven by a logic of abandonment of unsatisfactory jobs from a contractual and economic point of view (the number of workers leaving a temporary contract increases by 18.1% and that of those leaving a permanent contract by “only” by 9.4%), with reference to the profession, the the most significant growth is recorded at the top and bottom of the professional pyramid: among unskilled professions, there is an increase of 23%, the same recorded among intellectual and highly specialized professions (+22%).
Healthcare and construction among the most affected sectors
Also among the technical professions the propensity to resign increases, with a growth of 19.4%, while they don’t register particular changesi in the skilled professions in commercial activities and services, which also contribute to a small extent to fuel the phenomenon: between 2019 and 2021, the number of those who resign remains practically the same. Going into the detail of the estimates, which should be taken with due caution, a very particular growth is highlighted among the health professionsbe highly specialized (+44.6%) and technical (+47.4%), as well as among workers specialized in construction (+32.5%) and unskilled (+48%). Once again, healthcare and construction are certainly the sectors which, for different reasons, have been most affected by the
phenomenon. It is estimated that in construction, the increase in people who resigned between 2019 and 2021 was 47.1%, while in the health and social assistance sector the growth was 33%.
