‘We must give young people jobs’ says Letta

(ANSA) – Rome, December 3 – Italian Premier Enrico Letta on Tuesday said that while economic recovery is in the offing, more must be done to create jobs.

Italy is suffering record unemployment of 12%, and more than 41% among young people, at the tail-end of its longest recession in 20 years.

“The most anguishing data is the growth of youth unemployment. This anguish must push us to be even more firm in fielding measures to create jobs”, the premier said at the ANSA news agency PhotoANSA 2013 book launch. “While we are experiencing the first signs of economic and financial recovery, we are also still being dragged under by a long wave that is leaving social disaster in its wake”, Letta said.

The center-left premier pointed to two recent unemployment-busting government measures: an incentive for employers who hire people with unemployment benefits, allowing them to take on those benefits; and the other a new procedure approved earlier Tuesday, which is aimed at cracking down on fraudulent benefit claims.