We need to attract young talent towards the South of Italy: Campania Region soon also to have a new Webuild Technical Training School

Strait of Messina Bridge essential in the railway investment plan for Italy's competitiveness

Rome, April 18, 2024 – “We are currently living a unique historical moment that places us at the forefront of economic and geopolitical challenges. The sector must pay greater attention to these changes because the competitive model known until this very moment, now risks being replaced as it is outdated. The new geopolitical scenarios have significant repercussions with regards to the procurement of raw materials from places like China and India. This topic cannot leave the business arena silent. We need skills, training, and a new cohesive production system along the entire supply chain, supported by an industrial policy that looks to the Italy we wish to become by 2050". This is what Webuild CEO Pietro Salini said, during the 2nd edition of FEUROMED, the "Festival Euromediterraneo dell’Economia" (Euro-Mediterranean Economics Festival), currently taking place in Naples.

“A nation that needs to plan the future of the next 30 years cannot just count on year-by-year resources. It must try to safeguard, as it can, the planning of the most significant infrastructures, through long-term debt and remuneration systems, just like we have already done for electricity and gas. This system is based on the monopolist’s remuneration on the invested capital: a system that could also be used by Ferrovie and Anas, two of the main infrastructural development actors, therefore freeing up Italian State resources through debt, and a remunerated long-term programme. I would like such a system to be adopted to avoid doing things on a year-by-year basis, deciding whether or not to build works according to priorities on which to use budget resources."

“One of the challenges that Italy must face is to meet and solve, in competitive terms, the strengthening of the South of Italy with modern, sustainable, and well-interconnected infrastructures, so as to become a logistic hub of the Mediterranean. We need to strengthen the European TENT-T networks, where Webuild alone in Italy is currently already building 500 kilometres. But first, we must focus on quality employment and training. By attracting local talent, we can avoid our best resources from fleeing elsewhere, which obviously impoverishes Italy. This is also why we will soon also open a specialized Webuild training centre in Campania”. 

And the Strait of Messina Bridge perfectly fits into this strategic project. “The Bridge is a challenging work essential for allowing Italy to remain competitive, besides also being a technological showroom placing our nation among the very best, worldwide, in engineering terms. This work is part of a larger infrastructural development plan that Italy is implementing in the South, both in Sicily and on the Italian continent, starting from the railway and road investments made by RFI and Anas. A project is worth €4.5 billion over a total of approximately €120 billion railway investments that have been decided to connect Italy from North to South, including those currently being carried out along the Palermo-Catania-Messina rail route. Webuild and its supply chain, are ready to serve Italy, and to start immediately working to build the Strait of Messina Bridge". 

“From the National Resilience Plan (PNRR), from this push to investing in infrastructure that we are currently all witnessing, we should start training the young again. The Group, in this respect, plans to hire 10,000 people by 2026, many of which from the South of Italy. Webuild, in fact, wishes to contribute to providing a future for these young men and women”, specified Salini, according to whom "this is a social task that should be carried out by companies". Just like it is already doing with the ongoing training courses, where it aims at engaging approximately 3,000 people by 2026, thanks to the 11 specialistic training centres of the Professions School, activated in the main Italian sites, of which 6 in the Centre-South of the nation; the three advanced training centres of the Trade School, one soon to take off in Campania, one that is instead already active in Sicily, and one in Piedmont; a training centre started in April in Calabria, in collaboration with the Region, and training programmes to hire technicians in Sicily. 

“Webuild – continued Salini – is currently constructing over 300 km of new railway lines in the 19 projects currently under construction in the South of Italy, which include, among others: 4 sections of the Napoli-Bari railway line in Campania, Lot 1 A for the section included between Battipaglia and Romagnano of the new Salerno-Reggio Calabria High-Speed railway line, and 7 sections of the Palermo-Catania-Messina railway line”.