10 thousand people to hire in the next three-year period, 88% in the South of Italy

Webuild, the Region of Sicily and the Region of Calabria sign memorandums of understanding to promote employment, professional training and pre-work training 

First pre-concrete segment factory inaugurated in Belpasso; construction work begins on second factory in Enna, with a total investment of €70 million and
200 employed for the two robot-automated factories
serving the High-Capacity Palermo-Catania-Messina Line 

Rome, Nov. 23, 2023 - Investing to train people in the large infrastructure sector to create the new generation of future builders, filling the shortage of specialized resources in a market that is undergoing a huge evolution thanks to major investments like those planned by the PNRR. This is the goal of "Cantiere Lavoro Italia," a programme launched today by Webuild, in southern Italy, to attract new resources to the sector, and ensuring their professional quality, simultaneously offering specialized training, employment, room and board, and a skills attestation system.

The programme launch took place today in Belpasso (CT), Sicily, with the participation of the President of the Region of Sicily Renato Schifani, Webuild CEO Pietro Salini and RFI Chairman Dario Lo Bosco. The event coincided with the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding for Training and Employment between the Group and the Region of Sicily, and with the inauguration of the island’s first automated pre-cast concrete segment factory. The first advanced training centre in Sicily, organized and managed by Webuild to train specialized personnel in mechanized excavation, is being activated also in Belpasso. The afternoon witnessed the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding for Training and Employment between the Group and the Region of Calabria, in the presence of the President of the Region of Calabria Roberto Occhiuto.

"The collaboration with the business group, which has major orders to equip Sicily with more modern infrastructure, today takes on an innovative character," stressed Sicily Region President Renato Schifani. We positively value the company's project, and together we aim to make skilled employment aimed at constructing works that will change this region, grow in the territory.  Many Sicilian men and women will be able to acquire the required technical and specialist skills needed so that they can be employed in Webuild's construction sites. Training carried out in synergy with the production sector, with a focus on the real needs of businesses, is a priority of the regional Sicilian government. And the agreement signed this morning definitely heads in this direction: public works must also create high-level know-how and professionalism, on site, which will always remain expendable in the labour market."

"Calabria is a region full of talented young people who are eager to put themselves at the forefront to prove their worth," said Calabria Region President Roberto Occhiuto, "and their undisputed qualities". "The Webuild project we are launching today, called 'Cantiere Lavoro Italia,' represents a great opportunity for our territory, which in the forthcoming years will face epochal challenges to build or strengthen infrastructure that is essential to create development and attract investments. There will be many opportunities to make a real breakthrough: from the Strait of Messina Bridge to the doubling of the Ionian Highway 106, from the completion of the A2 Motorway to the railroad construction sites for the electrification of part of the railroad line and for the High-Speed Railway to Reggio.  And it's really good to know that the protagonists who, together with the best engineers in the country, will do all this will be young people from Calabria who, thanks to the Memorandum of Understanding signed today, we will train and start working."

“We are proud of the developments created by our works even with regard to the professional growth of people in their territories – said RFI Chairman Dario Lo Bosco. Our collaboration with Webuild, the General Contractor, creates a new industry and a school that will train young talent in Sicily and in the rest of Italy too. Post-graduate training in technical disciplines with regard to employment, will allow creating specialist workforce in construction sites. A path strictly connected to the new Palermo-Catania railway line, a work commissioned by RFI, for an overall investment of over 12 billion euros”.

 "We need to think big to design together a new future for our beloved Italy. To do this - said Pietro Salini - we launched today from Sicily and Calabria an employment programme for 10,000 women and men in the next thirty years, of which 88% in the South of Italy. We are at work on 31 construction sites across the country. Our wish is to help write a future full of quality skills to bring to our sector, during these times of major infrastructural investments, alongside our institutions, with positive benefits on employment and the supply chain. This will also be done through an ambitious specialized training and employment programme, starting in Southern Italy: "Cantiere Lavoro Italia". The latter will focus on attracting young talent and unemployed people, while also offering training and growth opportunities for profiles currently not available in the market. On the outskirts of Catania, we, in fact, inaugurated the first automated pre-concrete segment factory, firmly guiding Italy's attention towards the South of Italy, while also offering a strong message to the entire country. A second factory in Enna will add to the first, with a total investment of 70 million euros and 200 people employed. A choral effort is needed for innovative and sustainable projects in the South of Italy, where many talented people can be found who have a will to make things happen." 

Cantiere Lavoro Italia is a programme consisting of three types of schools (a Territorial School, a Professions School, and a Trade School) aimed at differentiated targets, from young people to the unemployed. With this programme, the Group aims to train and then subsequently hire a variety of professionals, both skilled labourers (including excavator miners, electricians, plant engineers, and others) and staff figures (including buyers, job accountants, TBM engineers). The Group offers basic pre-employment training, specialist training (with a contract as early as the training phase), a free room and board (in the specialization phase), and certification of the acquired skills, to all selected people. The programme is aimed at: all people currently unemployed who wish to undertake retraining and outplacement in the industry; experienced and inexperienced general or skilled labourers; young people who concluded the first three years of secondary school (Italian "Terza Media"), or who have completed high school; and recent university graduates. 

Cantiere Lavoro Italia testifies for the constant push for model and process innovation pursued by Webuild. The "Roboplant," factory in Belpasso inaugurated today, stands for this. It is in fact the fruit of the collaboration with Milan's Polytechnic and is intended to produce pre-cast concrete segments for lining the tunnels of the railway lines currently being built in in Sicily. Webuild has conceived and designed an innovative automated, “green” factory model for pre-cast concrete segment production. It has built the first pre-cast concrete segment factory in Catania (Belpasso), in a consortium with Pizzarotti, while a second is planned in a consortium with Pizzarotti and Ghella. The total investment for the two factories amounts to €70 million with an estimated employment of about 200 people.

The investments and training and employment programmes announced today confirm Webuild's strong commitment to Southern Italy. The Group is in fact carrying out 19 projects here, with a total awarded value of about €13 billion, including, among others: 7 sections of the Palermo-Catania-Messina railway line and the Ragusa-Catania highway axis, in Sicily; Megalot 3 of the Ionica Trunk Road (SS106) in Calabria; 4 sections of the Naples-Bari high-speed and capacity railway line in Campania. Webuild projects in the South of Italy currently employ 4,700 people, including direct and third-party staff, with a supply chain of 3,900 companies involved since works began.