The gross figure on the payslip is less than half the story. Here is every item an Italian employer pays for a part time secretary, with ranges stated as ranges, and the same total set against the other options.
Which secretary we are talking about
Take the most common case in a small business: one person on the phone and at the counter for twenty hours a week, hired under the terziario contract that covers retail and services. Not an administrator: someone who answers, books and greets whoever walks in.
Every number below is a range, not a quote: it moves with the grade, the province, seniority increments and whatever hiring relief is in force. Your accountant gives you the exact figure for your own case.
The gross starting salary
A receptionist is usually placed at the fifth or the fourth grade of the terziario contract. Full time, the contractual minimum sits between 1,450 and 1,750 euros gross a month depending on the grade. A twenty hour part time takes half: 725 to 875 euros gross.
The contract pays fourteen monthly instalments, so the gross annual pay of that part time lands between 10,000 and 12,500 euros. Everything else is calculated on top of this base.
Contributions, TFR and the multiplier
On top of the gross the employer pays INPS contributions, usually around 30 percent, plus the INAIL premium, which is small for office work. TFR, the Italian severance accrual, sets aside the annual pay divided by 13.5 every year, about 7.4 percent.
Add it up and the employer cost of an Italian employee is 1.4 to 1.5 times the gross pay. That multiplier is worth remembering every time you read a salary figure.
The total for twenty hours a week
Apply the multiplier: 10,000 to 12,500 euros of annual gross becomes an employer cost of 14,000 to 18,500 euros a year, which is 1,170 to 1,540 euros a month with the thirteenth and fourteenth instalments already inside.
Twenty hours a week is about 1,040 hours a year, down to just over 900 once holidays, leave and public holidays come out. So every staffed phone hour costs 15 to 20 euros. The other 148 hours of the week stay uncovered.
The items that never reach the payslip
Hiring takes your time, and so do the first weeks: until the person knows the price list and the diary, you are still the one answering. Then there is the desk, the software, the extra line.
And there is cover: holidays, sickness, leave and maternity take out exactly the hours you were paying to fill. In a business with one person on the phone, turnover is the heaviest item and it appears in no budget.
The alternatives and their prices
An external answering service is billed per use or in monthly bundles: the operator takes a message but does not keep your diary. A freelance on a day rate costs more per hour and cannot promise to be free when the phone rings.
A voice assistant costs 69.99 euros a month on the Base plan and 129.99 on Pro, VAT excluded, and works twenty four hours a day. It does not greet people at the door and does not take payment: that needs a person. For the phone alone, the arithmetic changes.