Assunta Linza, a petite 33-year-old, and her father Giovanni, 60, graying and with the build of a bulldozer, are sitting on the family sofa in a northern suburb of Rome. Assunta is an old Catholic name that her father picked out. It represents the ascent into heaven of the Virgin Mary, and it translates as the Accepted One, or, as the case may be, the Employed One. "My name is a joke," Assunta says with a weary smile.
She is holding a letter in her hands. It's been official since this morning: She is unemployed and, beginning in June, will no longer receive government support.
It's Wednesday evening of last week, the news is on television and the traders at the Milan Stock Exchange are staring at their screens in disbelief. The risk premium on Italian government bonds has risen to 5.6 percent, the highest it's been since Christmas. The father and daughter sitting on their living-room sofa in a Rome suburb; they are the faces of the crisis. It is a society split into two classes, the one outfitted with open-ended contracts and fat pensions, the other with no future prospects despite a better education.
When Assunta Linza signed her first open-ended employment contract five years ago, she wept with joy. After studying psychology and graduating with honors, she worked for years in the gray economy and completed dozens of internships. Finally, she was about to start work at a call center, where her job consisted of helping customers of an Italian energy firm with questions about their gas and electric bills.
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