Voluntary exits, 10% of workers changed jobs in 2021. There are 180 thousand people in Milan (more than 30% compared to 2020): one in two is under the age of 35, more men than women. Escape from catering, offices, sales, logistics and cleaning. Del Conte (Bocconi): positive sign, mobile market full of opportunities
In Lombardy, almost 10 percent of workers resigned last year. The proportion gives the idea of the phenomenon everyone is talking about, that of G
reat Resignation
(to quote the term used in the United States, where it exploded), the voluntary mass resignations in the name of greater office-life balance and fundamental principles in the post-pandemic employment world such as smart working and greater adherence to one’s own skills and aspirations. Not abandoning work, but moving towards a new one where to find better motivations and conditions, therefore – the experts explain – active realignment between supply and demand. In Lombardy, with the magnet of the greater liveliness of the market represented by Milan, the numbers leave no room for doubt: in 2021 419,754 workers resigned, 9.5 per cent of the 4.4 million employed.
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The choice of young people
The complete picture of the phenomenon, thanks to the data processed by CGIL Lombardia for the Courier, says well more than one in two of these is in the Metropolitan City. Start from here: in 2021 in Milan the voluntary resignations were 179,200, with a strong acceleration in the last six months of the year. Almost one in two (82,730) is under the age of 35, 109,000 come from employment contracts longer than a year and in the group there are more men than women. The most numerous (over 16 thousand) leave their place in management activities, over 14 thousand in catering, 11 thousand in sales, over 10 thousand in logistics, as many in management and banking activities. In 2020, the resignations were 127,294: 30 percent less.
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The ages of the workers
The market in the rest of Lombardy has different nuances from that of the capital and this is evident from at least two factors: the age and the starting jobs. Of the 420,000 resignations from Lombardy, including Milan, 181,930 are under the age of 35 (less, in proportion, than in the capital alone), 178,488 are between 35 and 54 years old and 253 thousand come from employment relationships longer than a year. The majority leaves a place in catering (39,377), as an employee (33,208), to sales (26,434), in logistics (21,648) and as a cleaner (15,828). Also in Lombardy the comparison with 2020 marks an increase of 30 per cent: 298,114 had resigned.
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Opportunity, flexibility and smart working
This is a positive sign, “not of abandoning work”, explains Maurizio Del Conte, professor of labor law at Bocconi University and president of Afol Metropolitana, but of «Shift to a new one. It means that there is mobility and opportunities in the market “. A dynamic linked to “the growth recorded from the second quarter of 2021” and therefore to the “possibility of choosing a job rather than being chosen, to assert one’s professional skills: this voluntary movement of workers can therefore contribute in part to greater alignment between the person’s professional assets and employment, between supply and demand “. All this allows us to interpret the reasons for this choice – whoever resigns does so “Because he goes to look for new motivations and better conditions” – and what it means for companies: “Today, those who offer qualified work must increasingly offer an opportunity for smart working, the possibility of self-organizing work times and places”.
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The effects of Covid
The reasoning must bring together all the transformative effects produced by the pandemic: «Technological acceleration, change in professionalism and organizational impact of work. This has changed a paradigm – explains Del Conte -: we didn’t think it was possible to work structurally outside the office. Offering a job today without giving that opportunity means cutting off a quota of potential candidates. From the point of view of competitiveness, companies that today say “let’s go back to the past” lose the train of innovation and recovery of productivity. It is a defensive reaction ”, which distances them from the“ most competitive companies ”, a“ retrograde motion of those who have felt displaced ”.
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The analysis of the CGIL
The phenomenon questions companies thoroughly, he comments Massimo Bonini, general secretary of the Milan CGIL: «It questions the quality of work and the quality of life in companies. If workers resign, it means that they are no longer feeling well along the lines that the pandemic has simply made more evident: greater autonomy and greater work-life balance“. And then there is respect for skills: “A young person who finds himself in a context where he is clearly more prepared for the profession in 2022 than his superiors finds himself in difficulty”. Third: the salary: «If after so many years a qualified worker with years of study behind him finds himself with the same (low) salary, there is a problem. It is clear that he is going to look for better conditions ».
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May 17, 2022 (change May 17, 2022 | 08:11)
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