The role of Public Employment Services in the job search behaviour of Italian NEETs

This outreach report is devoted to the study of the positioning of the Public Employment
Services (PES) in the job-search behaviour of Italian NEETs and their effectiveness in
providing support to young jobseekers. We assess the ties between the young population
and the PES and then evaluate the strategies used by Italian NEETs to look for a job, with
a focus on the reliance on PES. Our findings show that the incidence of young NEETs that
rely on PES services is very limited. The reasons of the difficulties in the performance of
PES are multifaceted and can be attributed both to the labour supply and labour demand
conditions in Italy in the time-window of our analysis. Results for 2020, which account for
the effects of policies to prevent the diffusion of COVID-19, return a picture that is
coherent with previous evidence.