Abstract

The aim of this paper is to outline, particularly for the Mezzogiorno, employment perspectives offered by non-profit sector, being more and more important within the Italian economy, both for its amount of services offered and for its amount of employed job units. This analysis points out the persistence of some structural weakness which characterizes non-profit in Italy, such as a substantial presence of very small organizations, which on average employ few paid job. This sector highlights a clear geographic differentiation of job opportunities, as we can notice for economy as a whole, and an increasing resort to flexible job contracts. A promising role seems to be performed by social cooperatives, being more and more important within non-profit. Also in this case, however, significant differences have to be underlined between the two Italy's macro-areas, as a result of their lower expansive capacity in the Mezzogiorno, linked too to a lower inclination to be in the market, compared to the Centre-North.