Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is being urged to do more to address her country's jobless rate in the wake of the latest unemployment figures by the European Commission.‌ The results for May show Italy has the third highest rate of unemployment in the EU, and in some parts of the country youth unemployment is at a staggering 40 per cent.‌

Luca Mazzeo, a 28-year-old sound engineer, managed to beat the odds after finding a job in a music studio in Rome, thanks to the 'Sophia Project.' The social enterprise based in Rome, has helped 120 young people find work in the past three years.‌

"I felt a big turning point in my life when I realized I had to persist to succeed. Now to have the job I've always wanted is decidedly satisfying," says Mazzeo.

Giuseppe Alfonsi is a manager at the 'Sophia' Social Enterprise.‌ "This work gives me a lot of satisfaction because it allows me to enter into someone's life and push them to start a new path," he told CGTN.

The project is privately funded and offers mentoring, courses, and a site for manual labor. In Italy there are around 2 million young people not in education, employment, or training.

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Italy has the third highest youth unemployment rate in the Eurozone, after Spain and Greece. In May, Europe's overall youth unemployment rate was 13.9 per cent, while in Italy it was 21.7 per cent.‌

In some parts of the country's south, such as Calabria, that figure is almost double. Valentina Meliciani, a professor at Luiss Business School, says there are several economic and cultural factors at play.

"We have a low percentage of people with a tertiary degree in Italy, less than 35 percent while the target in the EU is 45 percent."

For those who do obtain a degree, positions are scarce because 80 percent of small and medium businesses are family owned and managed.‌

"I think it is a case of investing more in education, also developing technical institutes, and investing in research and development," says Professor Meliciani‌

Mazzeo says patience is key. "My advice to other young people looking for work would be to throw yourself into it… and don't worry if you don't find the perfect job straight away."

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