The acceleration ofinflation “risks of increase inequality, both due to the decrease in purchasing power, which is more marked among families with strong budgetary constraints, and to the timescales for contract renewals, which are longer in sectors with low wage levels”. Istat writes it in its latest Annual Report 2022, underlining that women, young people, residents of the South and foreigners are confirmed as the most fragile subjects, together with the disabled and their family members.
Istat: rising prices, declining salaries
In detail, in March for households with severe budget constraints the trend change in the harmonized index of consumer prices was +9,4%, 2,6 percentage points higher than the inflation measured in the same month for the population as a whole. And it is a matter of an increase in prices for essential goods and services, the consumption of which can hardly be reduced. In addition to food, energy expenditure is included, of which 63% of this segment of families allocates to the purchase of energy goods for domestic use (electricity, gas for cooking and heating). Conversely, among the wealthiest families, over half of energy expenditure (55%) goes to fuel and lubricants.
The decline of “standard” employment and the boom of “hybrid” employment
Over time – Istat recalled – it is progressively standard occupancy decreased, ie full-time and open-ended employment, while hybrid working methods are increasingly widespread. The consequence is the deterioration of the overall quality of employment. The combination of short-term and intense employment contracts and low hourly wages results in “significantly low annual pay levels”.
I independent workers have progressively decreased – from almost a third of the employed in the early 90s to just over a fifth in 2021 (about 4,9 million) – due to the decline in entrepreneurs, self-employed workers (farmers, artisans, traders) , assistants and collaborators. 73,1% of this segment of workers have no employees.
I employees Temporary they have doubled since the early 90s, standing at 2,9 million in 2021.
Over the years, the share of short-term jobs has progressively increased: again in 2021, almost half of temporary employees have a job of less than or equal to 6 months.
THEpart-time employment it went from 11% in the early 90s to 18,6% last year. In 60,9% of cases, part-time is involuntary, a component that has shown the most consistent growth. Almost 5 million employed people (21,7% of the total) are non-standard, ie on fixed-term contracts, collaborators or involuntary part-time.
Absolute poverty has more than doubled since 2005
At the same time, in the last ten years poverty has gradually increased. Since 2005 the absolute one more than doubled: the families involved increased from just over 800 thousand to one million 960 thousand in 2021 (7,5% of the total). Due to the more marked diffusion of the phenomenon among large families, the number of individuals in absolute poverty has almost tripled, going from 1,9 to 5,6 million (9,4% of the total).
The connotation of families in absolute poverty has progressively changed since 2005. The incidence has decreased among single elderly people, has stabilized among elderly couples, has grown strongly among couples with children, among single parents and among families of other typology (families with two or more nuclei or with aggregate members).
A particularly negative dynamic in terms of absolute poverty is observed for minors (from 3,9% in 2005 to 14,2% in 2021) and young people aged 18-34 (from 3,1% to 11,1%). In 2021, one million 382 thousand minors, one million 86 thousand 18-34 year olds and 734 thousand elderly people were in absolute poverty (among whom the incidence over time remains substantially stable and in 2021 stood at 5,3%).
The economic support measures disbursed in 2020, in particular citizen's and emergency income, have avoided by a million individuals (about 500 thousand families) to be in conditions of absolute poverty. The support measures also had an effect on the intensity of poverty, which, without subsidies, would have been 2020 percentage points higher in 10, reaching 28,8% (compared to 18,7% observed).
Low wages: one employee in 10 earns less than 8,4 euros per hour
As for wages, approx 4 million employees of the private sector (with the exclusion of the agriculture and domestic work sectors) - 29,5% of the total - receive a theoretical gross annual salary less than 12 thousand euros while for around 1,3 million employees – the 9,4% of the total – the hourly wage is less than €8,41 per hour. Of these, nearly one million receive less than 12 euros a year.
Workers with low hourly wages (less than 8,41 euros gross) are more often young people up to 34 years of age, women, foreigners (especially non-EU), with low educational qualifications and residents in the South. If in many cases it is of young people still in the family of origin, it is not infrequent that they are single parents or in pairs.
With inflation, real wages will return to 2009 levels
The growth in prices observed from the second half of 2021 to May 2022, in the absence of further upward or downward variations, could lead to a change in the harmonized index of consumer prices of +6,4% at the end of the year. Without renewals or adjustment mechanisms, concludes Istat, this would lead to an important one decrease in contractual wages in real terms, which, at the end of 2022, would return below the 2009 values.
