Interesting article about raccomandazioni:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/07/europe/hiring.php

Interesting article. These lines could have come right out of Don Fabrizio's mouth in "The Leopard"...

"It's incredible how Italy is incessantly condemned to change so that it can remain just as it is," [Filippo Ceccarelli.] ...

“Rather than try to change things, we struggle to adapt to the system," [Giovanni Flores].

Very interesting article which hits important points.
At the end of the month my sicilian husband and I ,plus our two children have to go back to the UK.
Do we want to?
No,not really.
My husband spent the last 20 years working very hard in the UK and his trade is stonemason.
We have a home here,no mortgage on it,but due to the impossible task of finding employment here we have had to rely on seasonal work.
It is very true here where we are that it is about who you know and not what you can do.
He is very good at his trade yet finding it hard to find decent work.
The alternative we have is to go back home and save money to come back and go into business for ourselves.
The lifestyle here is so much better and more relaxed for my children.
It is just this seemingly impossible hurdle to get over.

I have a stonemason friend who is much in demand in California. He gets so much work there that he's hard pressed to bring his wife back and forth to Italy which he must do for the sake of his daughter here. He says it's nearly impossible for him to set up his own business here the way he would like to. In California, he hires people to work for him on huge projects and teaches classes in stone carving. Here, it's so much harder to set up the kind of business he'd like to do. He doesn't have five generations of stone carvers behind him and usually ends up employed by the Bene Culturale for much less than he can make on his own if it were as easy to work the way he wants the way he does in California.

That mirrors our situation somewhat.
My husband is very skilled at his trade,but having to rely on casual labouring jobs which is stressful.
Eveen though he is from here he still faces an uphill struggle,so I can only imagine the hurdles faced by those coming to Italy.
We are still planning to put money away and come back as soon as possible,the kids have all their cousins here and its a fantastic place to bring up children.
You just need to have yourselves covered financially,rainy days etc