Roundup: Italy tops EU in the number of workers who have dropped out of workforce

Italy's stubborn jobless rate may not recover to pre-crisis levels for two decades, according to the latest estimates from the International Monetary Fund.

One of the main reasons is the number of Italians who have given up even looking for work.

In a report released this week, the IMF painted a bleak picture of Italy's employment picture, placing it among the worst economies in Europe. At the end of 2007, before the start of the economic crisis in Europe, Italy's unemployment level stood at 6.1 percent. Now it has more than doubled to 12.7 percent and the IMF said unless there is a significant improvement in Italy's economic growth rate it would take "almost 20 years to reduce the unemployment rate to pre-crisis levels."

Youth unemployment levels are much weaker, with 42.6 percent of workers under the age of 25 unable to find a job, according to Eurostat.

But behind those figures is an even more alarming statistic: those who are willing and able to work but not even looking for a job. According to Eurostat, for every 100 workers in Italy there are 15 more people looking for a job -- and another 20 who are not actively seeking employment. That is the highest level in the European Union.

All told, it means 4.5 million Italians are willing and able to work but have given up looking for a job, the highest level for Italy since the EU started tracking that statistic in 1998. Of those without a job, more have given up their search than those still searching.

"This is a worrying figure," Andrea Ciarini, an economic sociologist with Rome's La Sapienza University, said in an interview. "It's is a frustrating point when someone decides to drop out of the job market. But I don't believe it's a personal choice; it's a combination of factors. It's a choice of someone with no other options."

According to Marco Leonardi, an economist with the University of Milan, at least some of the problem is cyclical, and with youth unemployment so high, many young people drop out of the job market because they have the option of living with their parents. Eurostat says many others retreat to the black market economy of informal jobs that are not taxed and do not offer job security or benefits.

But despite those explanations, this is an important figure because the "discouraged job seekers," as they are called, are not figured into employment statistics under the guidelines of the International Labor Organization. Those guidelines define an unemployed worker as someone who do not have a job and who has applied for at least one job in the last 30 days. When someone stops looking for a job -- like 4.5 million Italians -- they no longer figure into employment statistics. Endit