Marina Garattoni
The purpose of increasing occupation rates is pursued by the Act no. 276/2003 first of all through a coordinated public and private intervention in support to some weak, or "disadvantaged", sectors of population, analytically defined in art. 2, k). The essay examines the structure and the present state of implementation of the insertion tools arranged by the Act. The new contract of apprenticeship, which remains the only formative contract of the Italian legal order, is analysed in the final section of the article.