The Italian economy accelerates more than expected and Confindustria revises growth estimates upwards. In the latest Economic Scenarios, the Association's Study Center has revised upwards GDP forecasts: +1,5% in 2017 and +1,3% in 2018, compared to +1,3% and +1,1% indicated three months ago. At the end of 2018, GDP will recover the ground lost with the second recession (2011-13) but will still be 4,7% below the maximum reached in 2008.
Furthermore, the estimates of the CSC do not include the effects of the next budget law (which is expected to improve balances by 0,5% of GDP), because "the real amount and composition are not known". The outcome of 2018 will also depend on investment incentives, their effective duration and the additional resources that will be put in place.
Despite the more robust GDP dynamics than expected, the expansion of the Italian economy remains lower than that of other European countries. The differential with respect to the rest of the Euro area remains negative and high, even if halved: in 2017 it was 0,8 percentage points, against 1,5 in 2015.
According to the CsC, since the end of 2013 we already have recovered almost a million jobs and by the end of next year, employed people will exceed the pre-crisis level by 160.
But "low youth employment is the real Achilles' heel of the Italian economic and social system - warns the Confindustria Study Center - In the relationship with the reference population, it has a gap of 10-17 percentage points, depending on the age group , from the Euro Area average”.
All of this “is inducing growing flows of emigration which produce a loss of human capital estimated at one point of GDP per year – around 14 billion euro – thus lowering development potential. It's a real emergency."
In seven years the phenomenon has undergone an impressive acceleration: it has gone from 21 emigrants under the age of 40 in 2008 to 51 in 2015.
