Osservatorio del mercato del lavoro della provincia di Bologna: Rapporto primo semestre 2007

The Report presents the main facts about labour market in the Bologna County during the first half of 2007. As it is presented five months after the release of the 2006 the analysis about the economic and socio-demographic structure of the County are not presented. The labour market of the County seems to go fairly well. At the regional (Emilia-Romagna) level, in front of a business cycle moderately good, the number of employees is still growing (+1% in a year), but some signals of discouragement among women labour force begins to be present (female labour force decreases of 0,6% in a year. The new fact in the Report is the it gives a complete track of every labour contract started during the fist six months of 2007, comphrensive of the non standard labour contracts. Under this point of view we find a critical situation linked to the diffusion of the fixed term contracts, that are the 62% of all the contracts started. If we look at workers age we find that for every age class this percentage still is above the 55%. So we can say that workplace instability embraces every worker that is seeking a job, and that it is not limited to young people, but yet is pervasive and embraces workes of every ages. Further, using survival analysis we were able to measure the durations of jobs according the type of contract (using data from 2004 to 2004). The expect duration of a job is 180 days, but if we rescrtict to fixed term contracts the duration falls to 70 days. Moreover, the probability of staying in the condition of fixed term worker, after 3 years, is still 90%.