Youth unemployment in Italy stands at 40.4% and overall unemployment stands at 12.5%. While Italy?s unemployment isn?t the highest in the Eurozone, it is one of the only places in the world where those with a college degree are more likely to be unemployed (33.3%) than those with a high school diploma or less (30.4%). Part of the reason is the degrees that Italians choose to pursue, mostly humanities, compared with what employers prefer to hire, engineering and economics. In lieu of hiring managers with a bachelor degrees with humanities, employers are hiring their managers with much less formal educations.
See "It?s harder to get a job in Italy with a college degree than without one", Annalisa Merelli, Quartz, November 7, 2013