Frequently Asked Questions
Question: What are the main measures issued by the Monti government for youth?
Reply: "Youth" is one of the priorities on the Monti government's agenda. All the most important packages that have so far been issued – "Save Italy", "Grow Italy", and "Simplify Italy" – contain measures for the younger generation. The measures that have been adopted so far pursue different, but complementary, objectives. Some of them are designed to foster accessibility to the world of work and to remove obstacles preventing young professionals from progressing in their careers. Others are intended to stimulate and support the innovation skills of new entrepreneurs. Others still are intended to benefit students, to facilitate their study pathways.
Here are the main novelties:
A – Incentives for business start-ups – The "Grow Italy" decree introduces a new article 2463-bis into the Italian Civil Code. This provides incentives for business start-ups which, in the Code, are called "Simplified Limited Liability Companies". The simplified company will have the following features:
- Maximum age limit. The owner or owners must not have completed their 35th birthday. When that age limit is exceeded, they have the possibility to convert the company into a different type of company.
- No need for a notary public. To incorporate a simplified company, the new procedure provided for craft persons and traders is sufficient. The procedure – which is called "Communication" – avoids the notarial fees payable when incorporating a company by public deed.
- Minimum share capital of one euro. With this new form of company, it will no longer be necessary to pay in the minimum share capital. The minimum share capital for ordinary limited liability companies is €10,000. The new minimum capital is one euro.
- The new company name. The limited liability company incorporated under the new law must indicate the denomination "simplified limited liability company".
- Stamp duty and secretarial fees exemption. Another facility (in terms of incorporation fee savings) is the exemption from stamp duty and secretarial fees due for the constitution of normal limited liability companies.
B - Facilities for joining professional associations – Facilitated access to practise the liberal professions will obviously bring benefits to young people by removing the present market barriers to professional services, have been raised by excessively restrictive corporatist and self-regulatory barriers hitherto. According to the latest ISTAT report published in December, youth unemployment stands at 31%. The percentage of young "Neets" (not in education employment or training) aged between 15 and 29 stands at 2.1 million, or 22.1% of the total population. This figure, which is worrying in itself, is still rising.
Between 2008 and 2011, the Neets increased by over 17 percentage points. A study by the Executive Intelligence Review has calculated the difference between the actual GDP and the potential GDP that would be achieved with 55% of the population employed. In one decade the cost to the Italian economy is in excess of €4,000 billion.
C. – Simplification of the university pathway by transforming the universities – To simplify students’ study courses, the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research will institute a one-stop shop site, which will also be in English, to pool all the information on all the degree courses of every Italian university. Once this portal is operational it to be possible to post all students’ course results, which will bring substantial benefits to students and the universities, streamlining procedures and reducing the time needed to perform them.
D - Measures for scientific and technological research – These measures, set out in the Development decree law are for scientific and technological research, and define the measures to be issued by the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research. They will be financed by FIRST (Fund for Scientific and Technological Research Investment, instituted in the 2007 budget law by merging three previously existing funds) and will support: 1) basic research, comprising activities to expand scientific and technological know-how not linked to industrial commercial objectives; 2) industrial research, comprising planned research or critical investigations focusing on the acquisition of new knowledge to be used to design new products, production processes or services, or to substantially improve them; 3) experimental development: to use the results of industrial research in a project or design for products, production processes or new services; 4) vocational training. The trainees identified to benefit from these training courses are: businesses, universities, research establishments and any other corporate body meeting the minimum eligibility requirements set out in the invitations to tender, if resident within Italian territory.
The work performed by FIRST will mainly relate to the following types of measures:
1. Basic research to support the advancement of knowledge;
2. Industrial research measures to drive the specialisation of the national industrial system;
3. Specialisation of the national industrial system;
4. Improving the capacity of the public system to conduct research through infrastructure activites, vocational training, use of results, and the generation of new entrepreneurship;
5. Supporting research activities incorporated into Community and international agreements and programmes;
6. Supporting industrial research activities to salvage industrial enterprises in crisis;
7. Supporting free research, particularly in the field of humanitarian and social sciences, and research being performed by young researchers.
E – Providing vocational training in the field of Tourism – In order to contribute to overcoming the critical difficulties in the national tourism training curricula, the Development decree law has instituted the Foundation for University Studies and Specialisation in Tourism.
The Foundation must be the link and the bridge between the best establishments of higher education for Tourism, and the business world, and promote cultural and productive exchange between this sector and the public tourism sector. The training provided will comprise specific updating and refresher courses, with exchanges of experience and internships between the public and the private sectors to encourage the acquisition of joint knowledge for the subsequent improvement of the quality of Italy's tourism product and to create a conscious culture of hospitality, keeping pace with the new demands for tourism, from both home and abroad.
In the subsequent decree issued by the Minister of Education, Universities and Research, jointly with the Minister for Regional Affairs, Tourism and Sport, the Statute of the Foundation will be adopted within 60 days of the entry into force of this decree, governing the objects and activities, organs and operational procedures of the Foundation, identifying the universities and the other stakeholders in the business world with which the Foundation will work most immediately as a matter of priority.
F – Tax reliefs for companies recruiting young people – In order to stimulate the business community and increase the employment of young people, Corporation tax payable on the portion relating to staff costs can be deducted in full. This novelty substantially and directly reduces the tax burden on business and labour costs. Before this measure, companies could only deduct €4,600 (becoming €9,200 for workers employed in the southern Italian regions). Under this new system, conversely, these deductions are increased to €10,600 (€15,200 in the case of southern Italian workers). These deductions only refer to men and women workers below the age of 35, working on indefinite labour contracts.
Latest update: 19/07/2012.
