Per un pugno di euro. Storie di ordinaria disoccupazione

In most developed countries the insurance against involuntary unemployment is a pivotal policy in the support of workers. In Italy, it has just a marginal role; furthermore, it is currently questioned for the very low coverage it grants to its target population. In this paper we show that the weaknesses and inconsistencies in the design of the main unemployment insurance measure in Italy – the Ordinary Unemployment Benefit (OUB) – are even more serious. Exploiting an original database tracing the transitions in and out of the measure we are able to show that what should be considered its proper uses – benefits granted in situations of frictional unemployment, account for just half of the cases. The other half is absorbed by seasonal work, “permanently precarious” work in the public sector and temporary layoffs. In the latter case, OUB is used as a substitute for the measure specifically devoted to temporary layoffs (the “Cassa Integrazione Guadagni”, CIG) when the condition to use CIG are not met – hampering this way the effectiveness of those conditions. Furthermore, it comes out that a large share of individuals eligible for OUB do opt for a competing measure nearly equivalent in the benefit amount and duration, eluding the job search conditionality requested for OUB recipiency – again, neutralizing its effectiveness. With a simple accounting micro-simulation we show how the documented (mis)uses of OUB do imply a structural imbalance between contributions and benefits across different categories of workers, which raises both equity and financial sustainability issues.