This article seeks to explore the relationship between young people without qualifications (students in a vocational training Centre in Bologna, in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna) and work. The authors begin by presenting the situation of these young people on the Italian labour market and their difficulties, briefly discussing the progression of the normative frameworks that encourage a combination of training and employment, such as internships and work-study contracts more generally. They then move on to describing the salient aspects of these young people’s attitudes towards work, using data collected in ongoing fieldwork.