Abstract

The author points out the enormous gap between official figures of local labour market, provided by Istat (National Statistics Institute), close to full employment, and the effective number of citizens asking for a job through labour services of the Province offices. He also underlines the methodological difficulties of labour market analysis, since even the meaning of terms like employment, unemployment, subordinate and independent activity became far less categorical after the 2003 Italian labour Act. It is also very difficult to compare data referring to period of time before and after the new legislation. The author then describes competencies and activities of the Province in the field of labour market and in the so called "active labour politicies".