Nearly a year after Italy’s first nationwide lockdown took effect, the coronavirus pandemic has brought the country’s fragile economy to its knees and cost thousands of workers their wages. Class resentment is mounting, but it’s not directed at the rich: Many Italians are turning their growing frustration against civil servants and other public employees, whose jobs are protected by contracts that rule out layoffs and furloughs.
Government workers seem to be the ideal scapegoat for Italy’s job security crisis. It’s no wonder that many people have come to see them as unfairly privileged amid the lockdowns. There are 3.2 million public employees in Italy, comprising 14 percent of the total workforce. They include 1.2 million school and university employees, roughly 650,000 health care workers, and 570,000 police and armed forces, along with civil servants. But since February 2020, more than half a million jobs have been lost in Italy, and many more are likely to follow suit when a layoff ban expires next month.
