Finding a job sometimes feels impossible. Enduring an endless cycle of Google searches, resumes, and cover letters can leave you thinking everyone is after the same jobs you are. That's actually true in Italy, where thousands of people apply for any government position that comes up, and endure the rigorous tests needed to land one.
Michele Borzoni captures the impossible odds in *Open Competitive Examinations, *his photo series documenting the entrance exams that draw hundreds of people to gymnasiums, concert halls, and sporting arenas around the country. Each of them wants to be a police officer, teacher, or nurse. They face long odds. “It’s more like a lottery rather than an exam,” Borzoni says. “Ten thousand people looking for 14 places? To get a job, you need to be really lucky, instead of really good at what you’re doing.”
Italy never truly recovered from the 2008 recession, and its national debt and unemployment rate keep rising. Today, almost 12 percent of Italians are unemployed, and the rate among those under 25 is almost 40 percent. Many people look to government jobs, but there aren’t enough to go around. Applicants must face three or four rounds of tests and interviews, and Borzoni estimates that only one-third of applicants pass the first exam.
Borzoni grew up in Florence and saw friends and classmates struggle to find work. Open Competitive Examinations and his larger project Workforce reveal the obstacles of earning a living in Italy. He photographed preliminary tests for two years starting in 2014. Borzoni worked with a medium format film camera, standing from a high vantage point like bleachers or a ladder so he could take in the entire scene. But he wants it to be about more than a sea of people. “I photographed them as a big group of numbers, but I know that they have names, they have stories to tell,” Borzoni says.
Only a lucky few land a job. Everyone else continues the search.
