In the Italian Southern regions, together with precious natural resources, there are importanthistorical-cultural resources which could affect positively the Southern and globalItalian productive and employment development. The Author concentrates the attention onthe potentialities of the so-called "cultural industry", a multisector set of activities producingservices, which can positively act on two sides: on the one side, on the short and mediumrun, can supply, by tertiary education, high level human capital; on the other side, on thelong run, can increase the local productivity, by incentivating a virtuous circle of increasingdemand of innovation and qualified human capital. The main purpose of the paper is toquantify the employment perspectives of high qualified workers in the case of developmentpolicies aiming to a rational full utilization of the existing Southern rich cultural resourcesand the growth of educated human capital registered in the South of Italy during the lasttwenty years. A comparative analysis of the situation in other OECD Counties is considereduseful for measuring the potential employment perspectives.