ROME, July 2 Reuters After years of informal work as a farm labourer, Federico Olivieri, 29, could not believe it when a huge building site appeared next to his home in Sicily with training on offer for the numerous specialised jobs required.

The programme by Italy39;s largest construction group Webuild is among a growing number of 39;academies39; run and financed by companies frustrated by many jobseekers lacking the knowhow.

We are being proactive about the problem. If the skills aren39;t there, then we will create them ourselves, Webuild39;s Chief HR, Organization Systems Officer Gianluca Grondona told Reuters of the group39;s programme, which it launched in November.

Skill mismatches are an international problem but for Italy, with the lowest employment rate in the EU and productivity that has stagnated for more than two decades, it is acute.

Despite a large pool of people seeking work or outside the labour market, vacancy rates stood at 2.5 in the first quarter of 2024, in line with the EU average, data from European Union statistics agency Eurostat shows. This compares with 2.8 in France and 0.9 in Spain in the same period.

Vocational schools and colleges are fewer and less popular in Italy than in most European countries, thinktank Prometeia highlighted in a June report, and even those that there are fail to produce students with the right expertise.

At the same time, too many young people are still studying subjects with lower market demand, such as…