http://www.style-research.eu/

1. This project is funded by the European Union under the 7th Framework Programme for Research
– Contract No. 613256.
Copyright © 2013 STYLE University of Brighton. All rights reserved.
Local Advisory Board Meetings Report 2014
Location: Dep. of Economics and Management,
University of Trento – via Inama 5, 38100 Trento (TN)
Date: January 16th
, 2015
Participants:
DEM - University of Trento (hosting partner) – Italy
Gabriella Berloffa, Eleonora Matteazzi, Gabriele Mazzolini, Paola Villa
LAB1: Family, Fertility and Youth Policies Agency - Province of Trento – Italy
Luciano Malfer
LAB2: Labour and Employment Policies Agency - Province of Trento – Italy
Michele Colasanto
LAB3: Labour Policies Observatory - Province of Trento – Italy
Luciano Galetti, Isabella Speziali
LAB4: Centro Sviluppo e Occupazione (Onlus association)- Italy
Franco Ferrazza
LAB5: Gioco degli Specchi –(Onlus association) - Italy
Andrea Petrella, Elisa Pini
LAB6: Directorate Generale for Culture, Education and Labour – Regione Emilia-Romagna - Italy
Patrizia Gigante
LAB7: Labour Agency “Veneto Lavoro” – Regione Veneto - Italy
Bruno Anastasia

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Summary for STYLE website
The first LAB meeting started with a general presentation of the STYLE project to the auditors. It
included a brief description of all WPs and a general overview of the specific tasks which are being
carried on by the University of Trento (DEM). We subsequently illustrated our results relating to WP8
(Family drivers) and WP10 (Flexicurity) and discussed them in detail together with LABs members.
In particular, LABs have been asked to comment on the following:
- young individuals job searching behavior, in terms of expectations, attitudes and feelings and the way
the family of origin affects these behaviors in the Italian context and in a comparative perspective;
- pivotal challenges in education, training, skill mismatch, etc. that need to be addressed in order to
assure effective youth transitions towards employment;
- the main implications and results on the implementation of the Youth Guarantee in Italy.
The key questions to LAB members was: which institutional arrangements and policy factors affected
the most the characteristics and patterns of transition in the Italian labour market, and how do they
change before, during and after the crisis?....
Their opinions were that: i) cultural factors play a central role in affecting the way young Italians self-
report their employment status in surveys, in particular regarding unpaid and informal work; ii) initiatives
such as the EVS project (European Voluntary Service) or any other kind of social work and third sector
activity have been proved to be successful in preventing youth marginalization and promoting social
inclusion; iii) LMPs aiming at favouring the independence of individuals can play a prominent role in
affecting the decision of leaving the family of origin; iii) schools seems to be effective in preventing social
exclusion, whenever they provide services favouring the transition of former students towards the labour
market.
In the first LAB-meeting we discussed the role that young migrants from EU8-countries(Czech Republic,
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia) play on the Austrian labour market.
In particular, employers in industries that face a shortage of (skilled) labour are interested in hiring young
people from EU8 countries, e.g. in the IT/high-tech, tourism and care sectors. In the near future,
Austrian companies will have to implement effective recruitment strategies due to increasing skilled
labour shortage in many industries. Labour market intermediaries increasingly fulfil a bridging function
between employers and employees from abroad. In recent years, the number of labour market
intermediaries has considerably been rising in Austria. The question what role intermediaries play for
working conditions or work contracts of young EU8 migrants is still open. LAB members suppose that
firms’ recruitment and selection procedures are not free from discrimination. Furthermore, many
migrants work in sectors characterised by challenging working conditions, e.g. in tourism (very long
working hours) and construction (long working hours, high accident risk).
LAB members do not know what factors motivate young EU8 people to migrate to Austria, nor are they
familiar with policies and management practices that are suited to increase the attractiveness of
Austrian employers. Thus, the LAB members’ key question reads: what has to be done to increase the
attractiveness of Austria as a target country for (highly) skilled EU8 migrants?

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Main issues of debate
Cross-country approach
Cross-country comparison of youth employment transitions is a very complex issue where several
dimensions have to be taken into account. One LAB member expressed his concerns about the role of
macroeconomics versus microeconomics determinants in explaining the different models of transitions
across EU, underlying the fact that the complexity of this issue is given by the fact that macro and micro
determinants occur at the same time and ought to be disentangled carefully.
Cultural vs economic factors
Cultural and economic factors affect differently the decision to leave the family of origin in Northern
European versus Mediterranean countries, so that in the two models very different categories are
involved in this decision. Moreover, within the same country, cultural factors also affect differently
migrants from natives in this regard. How social benefits can compensate for these differences and how
to convince marginalized categories to benefiting from them?
Skills and perception
Young individuals who are inactive and/or unemployed perceived themselves as uniquely affected by it.
Apparently, a social problem (i.e. inactivity, unemployment) is perceived as a personal problem. At the
core of this paradox there is probably a lack of competencies of certain categories of individuals in
looking for a job. An innovative area of analysis would be to investigate which skills are correlated with
the ability to quickly grasp job opportunities and how to develop them effectively.
Focus on the Italian market
Italian NEETs response to the Youth Guarantee has been surprisingly scarce. The fact is worrying since
NEETs had been considered the main target of this provision. In order to improve the design of the
Youth Guarantee so that it can address NEETs too, we need to deeply investigate the causes for its
failure and the reasons at the roots of this unexpected reaction.
Policy support in Italy
Policies favouring co-habiting, co-working and work&study formulas would improve the chances of
economic independence, consequently affecting the decision to leave the parental home and build a
new family.

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RESEARCH PARTNERS
1. University of Brighton–BBS CROME – United Kingdom
2. Institute for Employment Studies – United Kingdom
3. Institute for the Study of Labor – Germany
4. Centre for European Policy Studies – Belgium
5. TARKI Social Research Institute – Hungary
6. University of Trento – Italy
7. National University of Ireland Galway – Republic of Ireland
8. Democritus University of Thrace – Greece
9. University of Oxford – United Kingdom
10. Economic & Social Research Institute – Republic of Ireland
11. University of Salerno – Italy
12. University of Oviedo – Spain
13. University of Tartu – Estonia
14. Cracow University of Economics – Poland
15. Slovak Governance Institute – Slovakia
16. Metropolitan University Prague – Czech Republic
17. Grenoble School of Management – France
18. University of Tilburg – Netherlands
19. University of Graz – Austria
20. Copenhagen Business School – Denmark
21. Norwegian Social Research – Norway
22. Swedish Instutute for Social Research – Sweden
23. Koç University Social Policy Centre –Turkey
24. University of Turin – Italy
25. EurActiv – Belgium

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ADVISORY GROUPS
Consortium Advisory Network
Business Europe - www.businesseurope.eu
ETUI: European Trade Union Institute - www.etui.org
European Youth Forum - www.youthforum.org
European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions -
www.eurofound.europa.eu
ILO: International Labour Office - www.ilo.org
OECD: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development - www.oecd.org
OSE: Observatoire Sociale Européen - www.ose.be
SOLIDAR: European network of NGOs working to advance social justice in Europe -
www.solidar.org
EurActiv - www.euractiv.com
European Commission, D G Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion -
http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?langId=en&catId=1036