To solve unemployment, an Italian mayor believes he has an answer

Mayor Valter Piscedda thinks that paying residents to leave and find work in other parts of the EU may be the answer to unemployment in his town. - AFP

Governments across Europe dream of finding a magic solution to rising unemployment. But in the hardest-hit parts of the European Union (EU), joblessness rates continue to creep up, and the rhetoric does little to shorten the dole queue.

Now in a struggling corner of Italy, one mayor thinks he has found an answer to his town’s lack of work. Valter Piscedda, the mayor of Elmas, near Sardinia’s capital Cagliari, wants to pay residents to leave. The council will pay for 10 unemployed locals to take intensive English lessons, board a cheap flight, and look for jobs elsewhere in Europe.