Italian Labour Law: Trends and Developments Put to the Test of Technological Disruption

As is the case in many other legal systems, Italian labour law (widely intended) has been traditionally structured around the employment and self-employment divide, taking the standard employment relationship, that is, the open-ended, full-time contract of employment, as a reference. The summa divisio between employees and the self-employed provided the distinction between those covered by – and benefitting from – labour law regulation and those falling outside its scope of application. This distinction was enshrined in the Italian Civil Code of 1942 through the definition of ‘prestatore di lavoro subordinato’ (‘employee’, Art. 2094) and ‘contratto d’opera’ (‘contract for services’, Art. 2222).