Around 2022 job positions were created in 380. It is a number that exceeds the pre-Covid value, but there has been a slowdown since the summer. To trace the picture in light and dark on the job market is to rely onlast analysis realized by Bank of Italy, Ministry of Labour e Anpal, which underlines that the growth in employment for the year is exclusively attributable to component a indefinitely: over 400 stable jobs have been created, but in recent times the voice of fixed-term contracts has risen. And what about the Italian family wealth, in real terms, decreased by 1,1% in contrast to what was observed in 2020.
Work, employment will grow in 2022 but slow down at the end of the year
In 2022 about 380 thousand job positions, net of terminations, more than what was recorded in 2019 or before the health emergency. “The increase in the demand for labor remained sustained until the beginning of the summer – explains the document – bringing employment back to the pre-pandemic growth path. In the following months, the trend, albeit positive, weakened: in the November-December two-month period, net new activations remained at levels similar to those of 2019 (37 more jobs compared to about 33 three years earlier, net of seasonal effects).
Tow of the permanent contract, but at the end of 2022 the fixed-term component rose again
If you look at the type of contracts, the report says that “in 2022 the a component contributed almost exclusively to the increase in employment indefinitely, which in the previous year had represented only 40% of net activations. More than 410 stable jobs were created, against a substantially stationary nature of term loans and a drop of more than 50 in apprenticeship contracts".
In the post-Covid period, when companies were reluctant to trust in a restart, it was above all the determined time to pull the employment recovery. "Since the second half of 2021, when the recovery has consolidated, companies have returned to hiring with permanent contracts and transforming the temporary positions activated in the previous months", continues the report. “However, the recomposition of the workforce stabilized at the end of 2022, also as a result of the overall slowdown in the labor market; in December the number of forward contracts started to rise again”.
The slowdown has generated a rise in unemployment
If you look at the unemployment, in the first eleven months of the year the number of unemployed decreased by around 120 thousand units, a significant but less pronounced reduction compared to that of 2021. However, the slowdown in the labor market in the second half of 2022 was reflected in an increase of the number of unemployed.
"The decline in the number of unemployed in the first half of the year was followed by a recovery starting from the end of the summer, which was accentuated in the autumn, when many fixed-term contracts came to an end", explains the report. Moreover, "the ratio between re-entries into the state of unemployment after an employment of no more than six months and exits towards employment in the previous semester increased in the autumn, signaling a marked shortening of the average duration of employment contracts, already underway since the summer".
Tourism still below pre-Covid levels, construction is doing well
The employment recovery of the last two years has been quite heterogeneous between the various sectors. The sector tourist, despite the excellent performance of the summer season and the good start of the winter season, it still remains below pre-Covid levels. The construction, on the other hand, have recorded extremely high growth rates since the summer of 2020. Despite the most recent slowdown, the demand for labor in this sector should remain sustained also in relation to the investment plans envisaged by the Pnrr. While the growing use of forms of remote work and the increase in the use of digital services have favored the growth in the demand for labor in the information technology sectors, even if, underlines the analysis, the sector still appears to be of modest size.
Per capita wealth of Italians lower than other countries
In a publication separate, Bank of Italy and Istat have focused on wealth of Italian families. In 2021 it amounted to 10.422 billion euros, or 176 euros per capita. “Net wealth - highlights the report - increased by over 300 billion at current values compared to the previous year (+3%), continuing the growth that began in 2019 and was not interrupted by the pandemic crisis; in real terms, i.e. considering the incidence of the Ipca consumer price index, however, it decreased by 1,1%, in contrast to what was observed in 2020 (+1,7%). In relation to the gross disposable income, the net wealth of households decreased slightly (from 8,71 to 8,66)”.
At the international level, the per capita net wealth of Italian households at the end of 2021 was lower than that of all other countries, with the exception of Spain, where, however, the latest data available is from 2020. According to the report, since 2018, the growth in per capita wealth has been modest for families of France, UK, Germany e Italy and more sustained for Canadian and US households, thanks to the favorable dynamics of financial assets. In recent years, especially in 2021, growth for Italy has been lower than that of other countries.
