Florence needs young leathergoods workers
02/11/2017
In recent comments to Italian media, David Rulli, president of the leather branch of employers’ organisation Confindustria Florence, said the industry will look to employ between 1,500 and 2,000 young people in the next two years. “But that’s not enough to meet our needs,” he added. “We have a need of skilled people to carry out operations such as cutting, stitching and the final assembly of handbags and wallets. We have to get the message across to young people that this industry can be their future.”
Mr Rulli, who is also chief executive of a leathergoods manufacturer called Tripel Due, said high schools in and around Florence need to launch new courses to train new leathergoods workers. He pointed out that while many of the larger luxury leathergoods brands have in-house training programmes for new recruits, there are many smaller manufacturers in the region that cannot emulate that.
In total, he said that Florence is home to around 3,000 leathergoods companies, employing a combined total of around 20,000. Confindustria has said that in 2016 exports of leather and leathergoods brought €2.2 billion into the province of Florence and that the sector is growing at around 10% per year at the moment.
Image courtesy of Tripel Due.
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