More than one in five Italians aged 15-29 are jobless. The stay-at-home generation could no longer be derided as lazy "bamboccioni", or big babies, since those actively seeking to flee the nest had tripled since 1983. The downturn turned them into hostages in their own homes. 

A leading sociologist has warned that Italy risks "losing a generation" of young talent as it struggles to climb out of its crippling downturn. On the day the Rome government launched a desperate package of cuts to trim its debt and avoid the meltdown suffered by neighbour Greece, figures showed that two million young Italians are now drifting, neither studying nor working.
The ranks of idle Italians accounts for more than a fifth of all 15- to 29-year-olds, thanks mainly to a surge in the industrial north, where the job market shrivelled last year as national GDP dropped 5%. "Young people with more qualifications and with a well-off family behind them go abroad, and get along; all the others are left behind," said sociologist Chiara Saraceno.
With so many people kicking their heels, the number of 18-34-year-olds still living with their parents rose to almost 60% last year, up from 49% in 1983. Among those between 30 and 34, a third are still enjoying home-cooked pasta. Releasing the figures, the national statistics agency Istat said the stay-at-home generation could no longer be derided as lazy "bamboccioni", or big babies, since those actively seeking to flee the nest had tripled since 1983. The downturn turned them into hostages in their own homes.
But aimless time spent at home may not be the best training to help pull Italy out of long-term economic decline, the agency warned. "The young are often less well-prepared than their European peers to tackle new challenges and growing competition from a globalised world," it wrote. Commenting on the figures, the daily La Stampa  suggested jaded young people were anyway less interested in talent and training and more interested in knowing the right people to land the perfect job.
Newspapers have been filled this year with leaked wiretaps from a continuing investigation into alleged corruption in public works contracting, in which officials obsess on the phone about using favours to push their children into plum jobs, reinforcing the Italian idea that well-connected friends are more important than mailing out CVs. Getting a "raccomandazione", stated La Stampa, remains a national fixation with young Italians, "without which, you cannot achieve anything".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/
30/italian-young-people-lost-generation
 

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