Berlusconi Bollocks...

I only recently discovered an interesting and perturbing aspect of Italian employment laws, which is supposedly Berlusconi's fault: If you are over 25 years old your employer is required to pay twice your wages just to employ you. The employer has to pay you a certain amount per hour but he has to pay the same amount to the government. What this means is that while you can pay a 23 year old €5 an hour, a 25 year old doing the same job will cost you €10, €5 for them and €5 for the government. As a result of which anyone who's over 25 is either unemployed or working illegally (or still a student). As for the students, well, there are too many of them. Everyone either has a degree or is in a long and convoluted process of getting one, at the end of which there are no jobs... or so my Italian student friends would have me believe. At the moment I have a work contract, yes that's right, a work contract, for a shitty €5 an hour sandwich making job! You can't have a job legally without a work contract so even temporary part-time mcjobbies have contracts, that's assuming that you are working legally. What's more, I am officially an "apprentice" sandwich maker, it'll take me two years to complete my training, which'll be just in time for me to turn 25 and be fired. You gotta love this country. Don't worry, I'm not planning on making a career out of it, although obviously the buttering bread training will come in handy in future employment. €5 an hour in Perugia is actually fairly normal, and given costs of living I can just about keep my head above water with my part-time hours. The teaching is going well and that's bringing in a little bit more money so at least I won't starve.