Italy: new measures supporting employees in struggling businesses

On 15 July, Italy’s Council of Ministers adopted urgent measures to protect employees of companies in the process of liquidation or closure. Thus the government will finance thirteen additional weeks of technical unemployment until 31 December 2021 for employees of companies in crisis ‘with a minimum of 1,000 employees and which manage at least one industrial site of national strategic interest.’ This initiative primarily concerns employees of Acciaierie di Italia Holding, the former Ilva di Taranto, which is one of Europe’s largest and Italy’s most significant steel producers and which has been embroiled in longstanding environmental and legal scandals. Relief is also being provided to some 400 workers at the former Piedmont-based Embraco factory (refrigeration components), which is in the process of liquidation, and for whom the Minister of Labour has secured an additional six months of technical unemployment, at no cost to the company, in order to facilitate the search for a re-industrialization solution for the site. The Council of Ministers also wants to encourage companies facing liquidation or administration to use soft solutions that could substitute employee layoffs if possible with tax breaks, and which companies request from the Cassa Integrazione (technical unemployment) between 01 July to 31 December 2021.