(Finance) – The highest was recorded in October 2022 employment rate (60.5%) which however continues to be at the same time the lowest in the entire EU 27. However, the real state of the Italian labor market is investigated by the latest research by the DiVittorio Foundation published on the website CGIL.
The report, analyzing some fundamental aspects, highlights one situation occupational not rosy as it was instead told by almost univocal and triumphalist comments. First of all, the FDV highlights that it is not the first time that the employed exceed 23 million (23 million and 231 thousand in October 2022). It had already happened in 2018, in 2019 and in 2008, the trend therefore recovered the pre-pandemic periodbut it is basically stationary. The employment rate, according to what emerges from the analysis, is mainly growing not due to the increase in busybut for the drastic decrease of the population in working age: the employed, compared to February 2020, are +157 thousand, but the population of working age drops by -677 thousand. Also, employment ages.
The employed over 64 from 2008 to today they have almost doubled and the employed over 50 they represent about 40% of total employment. The problem demographic looking ahead, it risks becoming dramatic because the medium-term projections (20 years) predict a drastic drop in the population of working age. Another aspect analyzed is the quality of employment. Among the approximately 23 million employed in 2008, 2.3 million were temporary workers and 1.3 million were involuntary part-time workers; of the approximately 23 million currently employed, approximately 3 million are temporary workers and 2.7 are involuntary part-time workers. Also for this reason, the average hours worked from a busy employee they are lower than in 2008 and almost the same as in 2019, despite the increase in employment recorded in October. Finally, the much-emphasized Italian employment rate is the lowest in the 27-member Europe. The European rate is 70% (+9.7% compared to Italy), that of Germany exceeds 77%, but even Greece and Spain and all other Eastern European countries have higher rates than ours.
For the president of the Di Vittorio Foundation Fulvio Fammoni: “To give a realistic judgment on the current state of Italian employment, therefore, it is not necessary to take into consideration only the total number of employed people or the employment rate; all its dynamics must be considered, starting first of all from the exponential increase in precariousness and involuntary part-time work which, as the data show, are not positive, moreover in a year, 2022, in which the economy is growing significantly”.
According to the confederal secretary of the CGIL Tania Scacchetti: “Employment is still growing too little in our country, it is growing above all for those over 64, it is growing more precarious and poor, it continues to penalize young people and women”. For the union leader, “the recently enacted budget law does not provide adequate responses, indeed some choices represent an attack on the poorest and increase precariousness with the expansion of casual work. Furthermore, resources for health care, education and welfare are reduced, and fiscal inequality increases. Finally, the absence of strong conditionalities on investments risks worsening an already alarming situation”.
“The roads that our country should travel, also thanks to the resources of the Pnrrare those of investments conditional on the growth of quality work, starting from the public sectors, the contrast to precariousnessinvestment and valorisation of workers’ skills, the right to training permanent, industrial policies to ensure sustainable and strong growth. Roads – concludes Scacchetti – which must be traveled in order not to aggravate the demographic crisis which unfortunately describes a country in inexorable decline”.