Sardinia, employment is growing, but the real value of wages is plummeting: -15.2% in fifteen years.
The CISL report on the value of work on the island: 21,000 more people employed in the last two years, but the wage crisis and the graduate flight remain. A regional pact for revitalization is proposed.
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Employment is growing in Sardinia , but its real value isn't . This is the picture that emerges from the new report "Sardinia, the value of work. Wages, employment, productivity, bargaining and development ," produced by the "Giannetto Lay" Research Center of the CISL Sardinia , which will be presented on September 9th in Cagliari.
Between 2023 and 2025, employment increased from approximately 577,000 to approximately 598,000: 21,000 more people in two years . This significant result reflects a different picture of the island compared to the most difficult years of the crisis. But behind the growth in employment remains a crucial question: how much is work worth in Sardinia today?
A second piece of data changes the perspective . Between 2008 and 2023, average real wages for Sardinian private sector employees decreased by 15.2%, compared to the -6.2% recorded nationally.
And while the need for skills is growing, between 2019 and 2025 Sardinia recorded a negative migration balance of around 6,900 young Italian graduates between the ages of 25 and 34.
"The first thing we want to acknowledge is a positive thing," says Pier Luigi Ledda, General Secretary of the CISL Sardinia and President of the Giannetto Lay Research Center. "More people are working in Sardinia today. It would be wrong not to see this. But precisely because we've recovered employment, we can ask a more ambitious question: how much is the work we're creating worth? How long does it last, how much does it pay, what skills does it require, and what prospects does it offer people?"
EMPLOYMENT AND CONTINUITY – In 2025, the employment rate for 15-64 year-olds reached 58.2%, compared to 57.7% the previous year . Sardinia is well above the Southern Italian average, but still lags behind the Italian average. Furthermore, behind the overall growth, very different situations coexist: in 2025, permanent contracts made a significant contribution to new job creation, while in the first months of 2026, the increase was driven primarily by fixed-term contracts.
The Report also highlights the problem of job continuity. In 2023, Sardinian employees' paid days averaged 72.9% of theoretically workable days, compared to 78.9% nationwide . This difference helps explain why the gap in annual incomes may be even wider than that observed in individual salaries.
"It's no longer enough to count the number of people in employment," Ledda continues. "We need to measure the quality of work: stability, continuity, salary, professionalism, training, security, and growth opportunities. A contract can be stable and still generate insufficient income; similarly, a fixed-term contract can be a positive entry point if it leads to a real career path."
SKILLS – Skills is a key issue. In 2025, the employment rate for people with a bachelor's or postgraduate degree in Sardinia reached 83.7%, compared to 47.7% for those with a middle school diploma or higher . However, the island continues to have a lower share of young graduates than the Italian average and, at the same time, is losing a significant portion of the human capital it trains.
"There's a risk here we must address now," Ledda emphasizes. "Fewer young people, fewer births, and a growing proportion of workers approaching retirement age mean that in the coming years we will need to plan skills much better . We cannot afford to simultaneously have young people without opportunities, businesses and services that cannot find the professionalism and skills trained on the island and who choose to build their future elsewhere."
THE PROPOSAL – Hence the political proposal from CISL Sardinia: to open a discussion for a regional pact for productivity, wages, and job quality . A pact that combines investment and innovation, business growth, training and active policies, greater use of second-level bargaining, deseasonalization, participation, services, and the territorialization of professional needs.
"Wages don't increase by regional decree, and the Region shouldn't replace bargaining," Ledda points out. "But it can help create the conditions for increased productivity, skills, investment, and job quality . And bargaining must be able to redistribute a greater portion of the value produced. The real challenge is to increase productivity and wages together."
The Report also proposes building a regional system capable of measuring over time not only how many people work, but how much value work produces and how much it returns to people, through indicators on wages, days worked, stability, bargaining, training, youth mobility, and regional differences.
"Sardinia has demonstrated its ability to create jobs. Now it must take the next step," Ledda concludes. "Transforming employment growth into good jobs, higher wages, skills, and the opportunity to build a future here. This is where the quality of development is measured."
(Unioneonline)
