The forecasts on job market between now and 2034 highlight that within the next 10 years the audience of people of working age (15-64 years) present in Italy is destined to decrease by 3 million units (-8.1 percent). AND the province of Taranto is among those where this phenomenon will be most felt. This is revealed by a reports of theMestre CGIA Research Office. If at the beginning of 2024 this demographic cohort, nationally, included just under 37.5 million unitsin 2034 the same is destined to fall disastrously, stopping at just under 34.5 million people.
The reasons for this collapse are to be found in the progressive aging of the population: with fewer and fewer young people and with many baby boomers – people born between the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s – destined to exit the job market upon reaching age limits, many territories will suffer an authentic “depopulation”, also of potential workers, especially in the South.
FROM THE MESTRE CGIA REPORT
Between the 107 provinces of Italy monitoredunderlines the CGIA research office that developed it Istat’s demographic forecasts, only that of Prato will record a positive absolute change in these 10 years (+1,269 units equal to +0.75 percent). All the other 106, however, will have an advance balance from the minus sign. Among these, obviously, also Taranto. If in this sort of reverse ranking Prato is last, the Ionian province is among the first, and worst, twenty: eighteenth, to be precise. The working-age population of Taranto numbered, as of January 1, 2024, 348,146 units, which will become 301,254 on January 1, 2034. If this forecast is respected, Taranto and the province will have “lost” 46,892 potential workers, which in percentage terms means -13.47%.
If we add to the demographic recession geopolitical instability and the energy and digital transition, national companies seem destined to suffer frightening setbacks. The difficulty, for example, of finding young workers to be included in artisan, commercial or industrial companies is already felt now, let alone in a few decades. Obviously, those hoping for a reversal of the demographic trend risk being disappointed. Unfortunately, there are no measures capable of changing the sign of this phenomenon in a reasonably short time. And neither resorting to foreigners will be able to “resolve” the situation. Therefore, we must resign ourselves to a progressive slowdown, including in GDP. Not to mention that a society with fewer young people and older people will have to face a surge in social security, health and welfare spending that will make your wrists tremble.
In recent weeks it had emerged, moreover, as its own the province of Taranto is last in Puglia in the ratio between openings and closures of artisan businesses. “The numbers are worrying,” Stefano Castronuovo, regional coordinator of Casartigiani and provincial secretary for Taranto of the same association, explained to our newspaper. «From 2011 to today the data has been in a dangerous decline. It’s now difficult to do business here.” The data collected by Movimprese are clear: This is the data concerning the quarterly statistical analysis of the birth and death of companies, conducted by InfoRooms and on behalf of theUnioncamere, in the archives of all the Italian Chambers of Commerce. The difference recorded between the number of registrations and terminations in 2023 is minimal. Specifically, out of 43,374 companies, 2,521 businesses signed up to the Business Register, compared to the 2,120 that closed their doors. The balance is just 401. In Taranto and its province, artisan businesses – data as of December 2023 – are approximately 7,494; of these approximately 1,400 in the capital city alone. Seven hundred and sixty-one artisan businesses in Taranto have closed their doors in the last ten years. In 2012, in fact, there were 9,343 craft entrepreneurs in the Ionian area. An audience that was reduced to 8,582, 8.1% less than the previous decade.
Returning to reports of the CGIA, the most significant contractions of the working age population will concern, in particular, the South. The most critical scenario will affect the Basilicata which within the next decade will suffer a reduction in this group of people by 14.6 percent (-49,466 people). Followed by Sardinia with -14.2 percent (-110,999), Sicily with -12.8 percent (-392,873), Calabria with -12.7 percent (-147,979) and Molise with -12.7 percent (-22,980). On the other hand, the regions least affected by this phenomenon will be Lombardy with -3.4 percent (-218,678), Trentino Alto Adige with -3.1 percent (-21,368) and, finally, Emilia Romagna with -2.6 percent (-71,665).
FROM THE MESTRE CGIA REPORT
Already today many companies, even in the South, report the difficulty of finding trained personnel to include in their workforce. Despite this, the South could have fewer problems than the Centre-North. Unlike the latter, in fact, the former, having very high unemployment and inactivity rates, could fill, at least in part, the employment gaps which will especially affect the agri-food and hospitality sectors (hotels, restaurants and cafeterias). It is also evident that many companies, especially small ones, will be forced to downsize their workforce because you are unable to hire. For medium and large companies, however, the problem should be more limited. With the possibility of offering higher than average salaries, reduced hours, benefits and important corporate welfare packages, the few young people present in the job market will have no hesitations in choosing large rather than small and micro businesses which, these benefits, cannot deliver them.
A country that records an increasingly older population it could have serious problems balancing the public finances in the coming decades; particularly due to the increase in health, pension, pharmaceutical and welfare spending. It should also be noted that with few under 30s and a very widespread presence of over 65s, some important economic sectors could suffer negative repercussions, causing a structural contraction in GDP. With a much lower propensity to spend than the young population, a society made up mainly of older people risks reducing the turnover of the real estate, transport, fashion and hospitality markets (HoReCa). On the other hand, however, the banks they could count on some positive effects; with a greater predisposition to save, older people should increase the economic size of their deposits, a fact that could only be welcomed favorably by many credit institutions.
Again according to estimates developed by the CGIA Research Office on ISTAT data, between 2024 and 2034 it will be Agrigento is the Italian province that will record the demographic recession of the most important working population: -22.1 percent equal, in absolute terms, to -63,330 units. Followed by Ascoli Piceno with -19.6 percent (-26,970), Caltanissetta with -17.9 percent (-28,262), Enna with -17.7 percent (-17,170), also Alessandria with -17.7 percent (-48,621), Nuoro with -17.6 percent (-21,474), Southern Sardinia with -17.5 percent (-35,662) and Oristano with -16.9 percent (-15,482). Among the territories which, however, will feel the demographic decline of active workers less than the others we find Milan with -2 percent (-41,493), Bologna with -1.1 percent (-6,928), Parma with -0, 3 percent (-883) and, finally, Prato which, unlike all the other provinces, will present a result anticipated by the plus sign (+0.75 percent equal to an absolute value of +1,269). The positive result of Prato and of those provinces which have suffered smaller contractions than the others is attributable to the fact that, among other things, these territorial realities have a very high rate of foreign population compared to the resident population, thus lowering the average age and positively impacting birth rates.
Another crucial issue highlighted in another reports of the same Cgia of Mestre is the comparison between the number of pensions paid and that of those employed. If in Italy the former is equal to 22,772,000 and the latter amounts to 23,099,000, in the regions of the South and the Islands the pensions paid to citizens are 7,209,000, while the employees are 6,115,000.
A worrying result which clearly demonstrates the effects caused in recent decades by three closely related phenomena: the birth rate, the aging of the population and the presence of irregular workers. The combination of these factors is progressively reducing the number of active taxpayers and, consequently, swelling the ranks of those receiving welfare underlines the Research Office. To rebalance the system – we read again in the November 2023 report – there are no miraculous solutions and even if the results were available we would not have them before 20-25 years. However, with fewer and fewer young people and more and more pensioners, the trend can only be reversed in the medium to long term by broadening the employment base. As? First of all by bringing to the surface a good part of the “invisible” workers present in the country. We are talking about those who carry out an illegal activity which, according to Istat, amount to around 3 million people who every day go to the fields, factories and homes of Italians to carry out their irregular work activity. «Still» for the CGIA of Mestre «it is necessary to further encourage the entry of women into the job market, given that Italy is at the bottom of Europe for the female employment rate (equal to approximately 50 percent). Furthermore, we need to strengthen policies that encourage demographic growth (aid for young mothers, families, minors, etc.) and extend people’s working lives (at least people who carry out clerical or intellectual activities). Lastly, it is necessary to raise the educational level of the workforce which in Italy is still among the lowest in the entire EU. If we don’t do all this relatively quickly, in a few decades healthcare and social security risk imploding.”
At the provincial level in 2022 the most virtuous territorial reality in Italy was Milan (balance given by the difference between the number of pensions and employed people equal to +342 thousand). Followed by Rome (+326 thousand), Brescia (+107 thousand), Bergamo (+90 thousand), Bolzano (+87 thousand), Verona (+86 thousand) and Florence (+77 thousand). The results of the provinces of the South are bad. Among all, only Cagliari (+10 thousand) and Ragusa (+9 thousand) present a positive balance. The most unbalanced situations, however, concern Palermo (-74 thousand), Reggio Calabria (-85 thousand), Messina (-87 thousand), Naples (-92 thousand) and Lecce (-97 thousand). Also in Tarantoin any case, there is little to smile about, with a negative balance of -57 thousand (219,000 – 162,000).
From reading the demographic/employment statistics, very worrying trends emerge. Between 2023 and 2027, for example, the Italian labor market will require just under three million workers to replace people destined to retire. In short, in the next 5 years almost 12 percent of Italians will definitively leave their jobs due to having reached the age limit. With fewer and fewer young people destined to enter the job market, “replacing” a good portion of those who will slip into retirement will become a big problem for many entrepreneurs. In the last 5 years, recalls the CGIA of Mestre, the Italian population of working age (15-64 years) has fallen by over 755 thousand units and in 2022 alone the contraction amounted to 133 thousand.
