In 2023, the Italian GDP will grow by 1,1%, an average between +0,9% of the South and +1,2% in the Centre-North. This is what we read in the previews of Svimez 2023 report on the economy and society of the South presented today, Tuesday 18 July.
Svimez: growth driven by Pnrr, post-Covid recovery hooked up
The growth forecasts are based on the assumption of a partial use of the resources of Pnrr. With the full use of the funds of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan it could go even better, with the gross domestic product of the South which, already in 2023 could already show a higher growth of about 5 tenths (up to 1,4%) and about 4 tenths in the Centre-North.
“The most relevant news is that in the post-Covid dynamics the Mezzogiorno has hooked up to the national recovery marking growth rates substantially in line with the rest of the country" said the director of Svimez, Luca Bianchi, during the presentation of the Advances of the Svimez 2023 report, explaining that in 2022 the GDP of the South grew by 3,5% , compared to a national average of 3,7%. “The South is growing like the European average, if we compare it with the dynamics of recent years, it is obviously a change”, underlined Bianchi, underlining that in the last two years (2021-22) Southern Italy grew by 10,7%, the Centre-North by 11% and the North-West by 9,9%.
Despite the gallop made, the GDP of Southern Italy remains 7% lower than the levels reached in 2008, mainly due to "the long season of widening of territorial gaps in the pre-pandemic decade".
Svimez also highlights the effects ofraising interest rates by the ECB, underlining that "A further increase in the reference rate from 4,25 to 4,75 at the end of the year would have a further stronger depressive effect in the South than in the Centre-North", said director Bianchi
Svimez: in the South, one in four employees earns less than 9 euros an hour
On the same day in which Parliament votes (and in all likelihood approves) the suppressive amendment which cancels all eight articles of the bill on minimum salary, Svimez data shows that in Italy about 3 million workers have one hourly wage of less than 9 euros per hour. Of these, about one million are in the South where their share reaches 25,1% of employed employees, more than one in four.
Also the loss of purchasing power above all it affects the Mezzogiorno in Italy as well as poor work. In 2022 gross wages in real terms are three points lower in the Centre-North than in 2008; in the Mezzogiorno by twelve points.
Remaining on the employment front, in the period following the pandemic, the Noon managed to recover pre-Covid levels (+22 thousand employed on average in 2022 compared to 2019), but jobs still remain approximately 300 thousand lower than the levels reached in 2008. Between the first quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2023, employment grew by national level of +6,5%, marking +7,7% in the South (+442 employed). For the first time in many years, the permanent component also grew, especially in the South (+310 units; +9% compared to +5,5% in the Centre-North).
Pnrr will not bridge the gaps in school and childhood
Overall, until 2027, the cumulative impact of the Pnrr on Italian GDP could reach a value of 5,1 percentage points: 8,5 in the South and 4,1 in the Centre-North, estimates Svimez. And therefore it could even close the historical gap between the areas of the country.
However, the Pnrr will not be enough to bridge the territorial gaps in the supply of childcare and school services. Svimez has in fact assessed the degree of adherence of the Pnrr to its aims of territorial cohesion by studying the results of the allocation of resources to local authorities for investments in nursery schools and education.
For the approximately 10,7 billion allocated to local administrations, there is a substantial absence of correlation between spending levels per student and need indicators at the provincial level. Although the "South quota" has been respected, the local authorities of the three most populous southern regions - Sicily, Campania and Puglia - have had access to resources per student for school infrastructures below the Italian average. The provincial distribution of the resources assigned to the Municipalities shows significant intra-regional differences, especially in the larger regions. Naples and Palermo are among the last fifteen provinces in the ranking for resources allocated per student despite having, for example in the case of canteens, a very low percentage of students who can use them (5,7 and 4,7 respectively).
South: 460 graduates lost
In this context continues the Brain drain. Between 2001 and 2021 around 460.000 graduates left the South to move to the Centre-North. In the same period, the share of highly skilled southern emigrants (in possession of a university degree or higher education qualification) more than tripled, from around 9 to over 34%. So much so that of the 460 thousand graduates who have moved, 130 thousand were in possession of a STEM degree.
Fitto: The South has great potential
The data in the Svimez Report “suggest great potential and risks for the South, lights and shadows. The potential must be accompanied and the risks avoided also with the reprogramming interventions that we are carrying out ”, she said. the Minister for European Affairs, the South, Cohesion Policies and the Pnrr, Raffaele Fitto, at the press conference on the Advances of the Svimez 2023 Report where he announced that “there will be a memorandum of understanding to work together with Svimez".
