Starting July 1, 2026, Lombardy will launch the Work Placement Grant (DIL), a program funded through the 2021–2027 Regional ESF+ Program with an initial budget of 36 million euros. The stated goal is to ensure continuity of employment services during the transition phase between the conclusion of the GOL (Workers’ Employability Guarantee) Program and the new regional model of active labor market policies scheduled to begin in 2027. The new initiative comes at the conclusion of one of the most extensive pilot projects carried out in recent years in the field of active labor market policies. According to data published by the Lombardy Region, the GOL Program involved over 500,000 people, resulted in more than 171,000 job placements, and supported over 120,000 completed training programs.
These are significant figures. Lombardy accounts for about one-sixth of Italy’s population and generates over 23% of the national GDP. Any initiative affecting hundreds of thousands of workers in a region with such economic clout cannot be considered a technical matter reserved for “experts” in the field.
The transition from GOL to DIL coincides with the conclusion of one public funding cycle and the start of a new one. This transition raises a question that is rarely addressed systematically: how do we truly assess the success of an active labor market policy? Counting how many people enter a system is relatively simple. It is much more difficult to determine whether that system has actually increased their professional opportunities, improved their employability, or produced a lasting benefit for the economy as a whole.
The Italian Problem: It’s Not Just a Lack of Jobs
In recent years, the debate on employment has focused primarily on the quantity of jobs. However, the most recent data reveal a parallel problem: the growing difficulty businesses face in finding workers with skills that match their stated needs. According to the Excelsior Information System run by Unioncamere and the Ministry of Labor, in February 2025, 47.9% of the hires planned by businesses were difficult to fill. In practice, companies were unable to find candidates they deemed suitable for nearly one in every two positions. This phenomenon affects a wide range of professions: specialized technicians, healthcare workers, ICT professionals, logistics operators, maintenance workers, and manufacturing industry workers continue to be reported as difficult to find despite high demand.
This imbalance carries even greater weight when viewed alongside two long-term trends. The first concerns productivity. In the 2024 Economic Survey on Italy, the OECD identifies low productivity growth as one of the main weaknesses of the Italian economy, along with low labor force participation, particularly among women. The point is clear: if productivity grows only slightly, every inefficiency in the use of available human capital carries greater weight. The second trend concerns demographics. ISTAT projections for the resident population indicate a gradual decline in the working-age population over the coming decades and an increase in the relative share of older age groups. This means that the challenge will not only be to create jobs, but also to make better use of a labor force that is set to shrink.
Difficulties in finding skilled workers, low productivity growth, and a shrinking labor force describe a problem that goes beyond the simple number of employed people. In such a context, the central issue becomes the ability to reallocate people and skills toward economically sustainable and productive activities. For this reason, active labor market policies should not be viewed merely as tools to support employment. They are an integral component of the country’s competitive capacity. If they work, they reduce the mismatch between labor supply and demand. If they fail, they increase the economic and social costs of career transitions.
What the GOL Has Achieved
The officially reported results serve as the starting point for this analysis. According to data released by the Lombardy Region (and examined in detail at the beginning), we are dealing with an initiative of exceptional scale. Few regional public policies have involved such a large number of beneficiaries over a relatively short period of time. It is equally clear that a program of this scale cannot be evaluated solely through the individual perceptions of participants or the professionals involved. The available data describe the program but do not fully capture the assessment of its effects.
Enrollment certifies access to a program. Completion of a training program certifies participation in a training activity. Job placement certifies that a specific outcome, administratively recognized by the program, has been achieved. However, none of these indicators, taken in isolation, allows us to determine what the economic and employment effects were in the medium term. The reported results describe the scale of the intervention. They describe its effectiveness much less clearly. The transition from GOL to DIL makes this analysis particularly relevant, as it offers an opportunity to distinguish between the volume of activities carried out and the value actually generated for individuals, businesses, and the regional economic system—and beyond.
Why Numbers Are Not Enough
The results reported by the GOL deserve attention precisely because they represent one of the most extensive initiatives ever carried out in Lombardy in the context of active labor market policies. It would be a mistake, however, to confuse the scale of the activity carried out with its ability to solve the problem for which that activity was funded. In public policy, there is in fact a constant tension between what is easy to measure and what really matters. Activities are easily observable; real effects, much less so.
The most easily observable indicators inevitably tend to carry increasing weight in evaluation processes. The economist Charles Goodhart observed that a metric used as a target gradually tends to lose its descriptive power. The reason is simple: when a metric becomes the primary criterion for evaluation, people and organizations begin to adapt to that metric. Active labor market policies are no exception to this logic. If a significant portion of resources is allocated based on specific administrative outcomes, the system will inevitably develop a strong capacity to produce those administrative outcomes. This dynamic can be observed in numerous areas of public policy, where procedural compliance gradually tends to replace the measurement of actual effects.
The problem becomes even more significant when the demand for services depends largely on public funding. In such cases, the risk is not only the waste of resources but also that the system will develop ever-greater expertise in meeting the requirements of the metric and ever-less in demonstrating the value actually produced. For this reason, the evaluation of a public policy should focus less on the activities generated and more on the consequences observable over time, since activities should be a means and not an end.
The Problem of Evaluation
The effects of an investment in human capital are more difficult to observe than those of physical infrastructure. A railroad line either connects two cities or it does not. A training program can produce very different results depending on the economic context, the participants’ initial skills, and market demand. For this reason, evaluation often tends to shift toward what is most easily measurable.
This problem is not new. In its report on the Human Capital Project, the World Bank notes that long-term economic growth increasingly depends on the ability to transform investments in skills into skills that can actually be utilized within the production system. The same principle runs through the 2024 report on European competitiveness. In several sections, the document identifies the availability of skills and the workforce’s adaptability as key factors that will determine Europe’s ability to sustain innovation, growth, and economic autonomy in the coming decades.
This perspective also changes the way active labor market policies can be interpreted—namely, as one of the tools through which an economic system attempts to adapt to technological changes, demographic shifts, and external shocks. Times of transition make this distinction particularly clear. When a technology changes, a production chain is altered, or a new demand for skills emerges, the value of an active labor market policy does not depend primarily on the number of activities carried out; rather, it depends on the speed and effectiveness with which workers and businesses are able to realign themselves.
For this reason, the discussion cannot be limited to the amount of resources allocated or the volume of activities generated. Public resources always involve an allocative choice. Every allocation earmarked for a measure entails, in fact, forgoing possible alternative uses—either by the administration itself or, more generally, by the economic system that contributes to the financing of public spending. For this reason, the issue concerns not only the amount of available resources but also the ability to demonstrate that their use produces effects commensurate with the cost incurred. The transition from the GOL to the DIL provides an opportunity to assess whether the skills developed in recent years have actually been incorporated into the labor market or whether a significant portion of the observed results stems primarily from the program’s own operations. The answer will determine not only part of the country’s competitive capacity in the coming years but also the credibility with which future public investments in skills development and job placement will be evaluated.
The Transition as a Stress Test for the System
Every policy change inevitably leads to a period of adjustment. In Lombardy, as in the rest of the country, public and private operators have expanded facilities, services, local networks, and operational capacity to meet the demand generated by the program. Every economic sector tends to adapt to market conditions and available incentives, and public policies follow the same logic. It is during periods of transition that the differences between organizational models become apparent.
The DIL has a smaller budget than the GOL did at the height of its expansion and was explicitly designed as a transitional measure. This makes it, in effect, a testing ground for the entire regional ecosystem of active labor market policies. Some organizations will navigate the change without significant difficulty. These are the operators who, in addition to knowing administrative procedures and mechanisms, have built stable relationships with businesses over time, developed the ability to identify real employment needs, and established a recognized reputation in the local area. For other organizations, the transition could prove more complex, as a significant portion of the activities developed in recent years grew within a context strongly supported by the availability of public funding.
The difference between the two models becomes particularly evident during periods of disruption: when resources are abundant, many vulnerabilities remain hidden; when the flow slows down or changes direction, they become immediately apparent. The transition from GOL to DIL is a further test of the system’s ability to generate value independently of the specific measure funding it. The question that will arise in the coming months will not merely concern how many beneficiaries will access the new funding. It will concern the ability of program operators to continue generating employment opportunities, building relationships with the business community, and supporting career transitions even in a less expansive context.
What to Measure
In a labor market undergoing increasingly rapid technological, demographic, and productive transformations, tools for career guidance, training, and support will continue to play a significant role. The question rather concerns the criteria by which they are evaluated. A public policy creates value when it reduces a real problem. In the case of active labor market policies, the problem is not the number of people participating in a program. The problem is the labor market’s ability to absorb, reskill, and reallocate human capital. Some indicators provide more useful information than others about the quality of the results achieved. Employment retention after twelve months says more than a simple job placement. Wage trends say more than the number of training hours provided. A reduction in the duration of unemployment says more than the number of people enrolled in programs. The ability to respond to the needs of businesses says more than the number of courses offered. One distinction remains central: what would have happened anyway versus what happened thanks to public intervention. It is a methodologically complex but unavoidable question. Without this comparison, there is a risk of attributing results to the program that actually reflect economic, regional, or sectoral dynamics independent of the program itself. An active labor market policy creates value when it leaves skills in the labor market, not when it concentrates skills within the program that supports it.