Italy's Monti wins final confidence vote on labour reform

The legislation aims to ease firing procedures, broaden unemployment benefits from 2017 and end abuses to temporary hiring schemes that allowed employers to avoid taking on full-time workers.

The lower house of parliament was due to definitively approve the measure later on Wednesday in a routine vote.

Monti last week asked the parties backing him to pass the reform to bolster his position at negotiations on the future of the single currency at the EU summit.

(Reporting by Steve Scherer; editing by Philip Pullella)