With Sentence n° 5226/2016 of the Italian Supreme Court, socially useful work and part time permanent job have been declared compatible.

In this case, an employee has received  a check for a socially useful work service, asking then the return, since the worker had been employed with part-time permanent employment contract during the same period.

The insurance institution claimed the violation of art. 8, paragraphs 4 and 5 of Legislative Decree n. 468 of 1997, which allows the cumulation of the check for socially useful work, but only in case of income from employment relationships with part-time fixed-term.

Therefore, the Judges have accepted the worker's argument, as the rule in question does not expressly exclude the compatibility between permanent job and socially useful work. Furthermore, in the present case, there was no interference in terms of time and performance of the job with the public utility project.