Background information

The Law Decree no. 185, issued on 29 November 2008, was amended and converted into Law no. 2, which was issued on 28 January 2009. This law established the creation of the Social Fund for Employment and Training. The fund aims to finance extraordinary measures of active employment and training policies to support employment levels. The Law Decree no. 41, called the 'Support Decree,' was issued on 22 March 2021. This measure provided additional extraordinary financial resources to sustain employment levels during the COVID-19 emergency.

Content of measure

The Social Fund for Employment and Training was established to finance a wide array of measures and interventions to sustain employment levels and to promote activation including:

• initiatives for the exercise of the right and duty to education and training;
• training activities related to apprenticeship;
• training internship grants for young people;
• incentives for the reemployment of workers over 50 years old;
• incentives and initiatives in favour of workers involved in socially useful activities;
• intervention in favour of so-called “forced retired” workers;
• tax reductions applying to projects to reduce working hours;
• incentives for journalists’ early retirement.

The Law Decree no. 41, the 'Support Decree,' provided additional extraordinary financial resources to sustain employment levels during the COVID-19 emergency. Article no. 9 of the measure provides €400 million in funding for the year 2021, and €80 million in funding for the year 2022.

Use of measure

Information not available.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Applies to all workers	Applies to all businesses	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government	National funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	No involvement	No involvement
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• Unknown
• Main level of involvement: N/A

Involvement

The social partners have not been involved. The measure provides for an additional fund to sustain initiatives where the social partners might be involved at the company level.

Views and reactions

Social partners are expected to be supportive, given the fact that the measure introduce extraordinary financial resources provided by the central government to sustain employment levels and training.

Sources

• 22 March 2021: DECRETO-LEGGE 22 marzo 2021, n. 41 Misure urgenti in materia di sostegno alle imprese e agli operatori economici, di lavoro, salute e servizi territoriali, connesse all'emergenza da COVID-19 (www.gazzettaufficiale.it)
• 30 December 2021: Interventions to support income and employment (www.lavoro.gov.it)