Surprisingly, the downtrodden small businesses, those in theory (and according to the data also in fact) should be most affected by the crisis, outnumber the large ones in terms of momentum. At least in terms of employment created. In fact, between 2001 and 2011, according to a study by the Cgia of Mestre, small businesses created more than double the jobs produced by large companies. And it is no small gap: if the former gave rise to almost 457.200 new jobs, the latter to just over 212.600. 64% of the new jobs were therefore created by small businesses, net of employees in the public sector and agriculture. The medium-sized companies, on the other hand, are more distant: in the decade the number of employees in companies with between 50 and 249 employees increased by 41.354 units.
Of the total 711.178 new employees registered in this decade, 64,3% found work in small companies with fewer than 50 employees, 5,8% in medium-sized companies and 29,9% in large ones. «Excluding public sector and agricultural employees – recalls Giuseppe Bortolussi, secretary of the CGIA – 67% of all Italian workers work in a small or micro enterprise. We are talking - continues Bortolussi - of artisan/commercial companies, small businesses and activities led by freelancers who do not ask for aid or benefits, but a tax burden and a burden of bureaucracy in line with the European average and the possibility of accessing greater ease of credit.
At the territorial level, the Regions where small businesses proved to be more dynamic were those of the Centre-South. In percentage terms, the greatest changes in employment growth occurred in Lazio (+17,4%), Calabria (+14,4%) and Sicily (+14%).
