‘Decreto Lavoro’ approved: Italy links hiring incentives to fair-wage contracts and targets cross-border gig exploitation

Italy’s Council of Ministers gave final approval on 28 April to the long-awaited ‘Decreto Lavoro’, a package that sets aside almost €1 billion for job-creation incentives but ties access to companies that apply nationally-representative collective contracts—the so-called ‘salario giusto’. Crucially for global-mobility planners, the decree contains the first statutory definition of ‘caporalato digitale’, extending anti-labour-exploitation rules to app-based platforms operating across borders. Riders and freelance couriers subcontracted from abroad must now be hired through platforms that authenticate workers with SPID or CIE two-factor credentials and file posted-worker declarations in Italy’s new Digital Intermediation Register. Multinationals outsourcing last-mile logistics are jointly liable for wage under-payment, echoing Germany’s Lieferkettengesetz supply-chain law and creating new due-diligence obligations for HR and procurement teams. Foreign companies seconding staff to Italian subsidiaries can still benefit from de-social-contribution incentives for young and female hires, but only if they prove that the relevant Italian collective agreement is applied. Experts warn that internal expatriate-assignment contracts referencing home-country benchmarks may need to be revised to comply. The labour ministry will issue implementing decrees within 60 days; non-compliant firms face fines up to €50,000 and exclusion from public tenders. With parliamentary conversion expected by end-June, companies should audit vendor relationships—especially crowd-sourced delivery and shared-mobility services—and ensure posted-worker A1 certificates, remuneration statements and time-tracking data are centrally stored. Unions welcomed the anti-dumping provisions, while business association Confindustria said the link between incentives and fair pay “rewards compliant firms and punishes those using low-cost contracts to undercut markets”. International HR consultancies note that the Italian model could influence EU-level discussions on platform-worker rights slated for the second half of 2026.