In ten years the Piedmont lost 174 thousand people. These are the data provided this morning by Bank of Italy where the annual report of the Economy of Piedmont.
Foreigners are not enough
The demographic winter is everywhere, but in our Region the data is merciless when compared to the national or Northern Italian average. A natural balance, between deaths and new births, which is not compensated by foreign migratory flows. On the contrary, those who leave, mostly made up of young people heading abroad, cause depopulation: since 2007 theThe balance between registry cancellations and new entries is negative by 9,820 units.
Where brains flee
THE “brain drain” have been in this period of time 52,300 and mainly directed to France, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. The intensification of the phenomenon has been reported since 2012. Instead, 42,200 arrived in Piedmont (a third of them graduates), where there are, however, outgoing movements towards other regions of the North, primarily Lombardy, Emilia and Veneto.
The impact on work
Both outflows and inflows concern to a large extent young people between 19 and 39 years oldwhile on a general level the most significant decline concerns working age, given that it negatively impacts the dynamics of the labor supply which resists thanks to the increase in the activity rate.
The world of work is also aging
In the relationship between workers over 50 and under 35 Piedmont sees an imbalance towards the older age group in the public sector, with some critical issues related to staff in local authorities. In the municipality of Turin and in the Regionfor example, the employed people over 60 are more than three times as many as those under 40. In the healthcare the incidence of over 60s is high with the need to replace staff close to retirement, with percentages of requirementdepending on the categories that are around between 20% and 30%. All this in a context where the old age indexcalculated on the ratio between over 65 and under 14, grows: from 181.7 of 2007 at the latest data 219.9. And, in the same period, aaverage age went from 45 to 47.6.
What should we expect
And the forecasts are not the brightest. Istat forecasts predict a more sudden and intense demographic decline in Piedmont compared to the Italian average and the rest of the North. Between 2022 and 2042, residents would be reduced by 234,000 people (-5.5%, against 4.9% at a national level).
The share of people between 15 and 64 years old would drop from 61.8 to 54.9. With the same activity rates as today, the workforce that Piedmont will be able to draw on in twenty years would decrease by 285,500 units compared to today.
Women are not enough
An increase in female employment could help fill that gap. If all women were “employed”, like men, it would be filled to a large extent. However, not in Piedmont, where, unfortunately, there will not be enough women to make this demographic winter more tenuous, with all the already foreseeable consequences for the Piedmontese economy and society.
