TRENT. Employment in Trentino is not going backwards, but neither is it accelerating. Let’s say that she walks, and even with a certain calm. Other Italian regions do much better, even in the South. This is stated in the latest report fromMestre CGIA research office, which compared the performances of different territories over the last 5 years. A complicated period too, dotted with difficulties: above all the crisis linked first to Covid and then to the consequent recovery, to which was added the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis that followed it. In short, turbulent years, to which the Italian territories responded in a decidedly different way.
Trentino Alto Adige, going straight to our numbers, has seen employment grow but in limited ways: in 2019 there were 500 thousand employed, in 2022 506 thousand and in 2023 508 thousand. In absolute terms, 8 thousand more jobs were gained, which means an increase of 1.5%. If the Trentino data is separated out, proportionally things are better. In 2019 there were 240,600 employed, in 2022 243,00 and last year 245,400. We are growing a little more than our South Tyrolean friendsin short: 4,700 more workers, which means 2% of the total, over the five-year period, while Bolzano stops at an increase of 1.1%.
But is it a lot? Is that little, that 2% increase? Compared to the rest of the peninsula, it is not a performance worth mentioning: we are in the middle of the ford, 55th province out of 107 (but in 30 provinces jobs have been decreasing over the five-year period). But in any case things went better here than in Lombardy (+1.1%) and Emilia Romagna, even with a slight decline (-0.1%). What can be said with certainty is that other territories have been decidedly more reactive. After Covid, it was above all some areas in the south that grew.
To give some examples, there was a +6.3% in Puglia, +5.2% in Liguria and Sicily, +3.6% in Campania, and if we look at the provinces, however, there are territories that have seen growth in double-digit employment: Lecce +16.5%, Benevento +12.4%, Enna +11.2%, Frosinone +10.9%, just to mention the best performances. In short, if crises can be a problem but also an opportunity, some territories have seized it more effectively than others. Trentino, perhaps also because it did not start from a difficult situation, from an employment point of view.
But how has the Italian system reacted to the shocks of recent years? From the point of view of the increase in employment, good: in 2023 the country reached the record number of employed (23.6 million) with 471 thousand euros more than in the pre-Covid era, of which 213 thousand in the South, for an increase total of 3.5%.
The type of contracts is also good: at a national level, 84% are permanent. The hiring dynamics show that more and more qualified people are being hired: 96.5% of new jobs in 2023 concern highly specialized or qualified workers. There remains a fundamental critical issue for Italy: we may be at a record number of employed people, but we are at the bottom of the list in the Eurozone in terms of percentage of employed people in the possible workforce: in Italy the employment rate is 61.5%, the European average is 70.1%.
