The impact of the recession in Italy has worsened the condition of the southern regions and the islands, causing a more marked drop in the gross domestic product (-11 pp between 2008 and 2014) compared to the central-northern regions. In the two-year period 2015-2016, however, the growth rate of southern Italy almost doubled, with a recovery of two percentage points of GDP. According to Confcommercio forecasts, in 2017 the growth rate of the South is around 1,3%, only two tenths below the estimated national average.
Construction, with a drop similar to the national one (-31 pps compared to 2008 levels), and manufacturing, which recorded a drop of 25 pps, paid the heaviest price of the crisis. The 2015-2016 two-year period of recovery in the South also affected exports: the decline recorded in the 2012-2014 period only in the South (-1,6% in the period) regained an average pace of more than +5%, similar to that of the Eurozone. Despite the economic recovery recorded in the two-year period, southern household consumption is still far from 2008 levels (-10 pp), as are investments.
The prolonged recession has particularly affected the budgets of southern families, worsening the socio-economic conditions and accentuating the gap with the rest of Italy. In the space of twenty years, starting from 1995, the per capita GDP trend has remained mostly constant: in the South and in the Islands it has in fact increased by only 400 euros against 1.445 euros in the North. In the South and in the Islands, the reorganization of the labor market towards flexible forms of work, such as part-time and fixed-term contracts, was more marked than in the rest of Italy. In 2017, southern Italy recorded a significant decrease in full-time employees of approximately 12% compared to 2008, in contrast with the increase recorded in the Center and in the North.
An alarming figure is the share of involuntary part-time workers, those who are forced to work on reduced hours as an alternative to unemployment: in the South, 77,6% of part-time workers are involuntary compared to the national figure of 61 %. The employment gap at territorial level is significant: around 20% of the workforce residing in the southern regions is unemployed, double the national average (11,2%) and one out of two young people in the 15-24 age group is unemployed. The economic and social condition in the South and in the Islands is aggravated by a demographic transition characterized by a depopulation of the South and an aging population.
In the last fifteen years the number of inhabitants has grown by only 265 compared to 3.326
earned by the Centre-North. Between 2002 and 2015, 72,4% of emigrants (518.812 units) from the southern regions were young people aged between 15 and 34, of whom 28,5% held a university degree.
