After closing 2023 with a very heavy budget, the Tuscan fashion sector — in particular leather goods — began a truly black 2024, with a significant impact on workers: according to Irpet, in the first quarter of 2024, leather goods workers decreased by 1.5% compared to the fourth quarter of 2023, when they were already decreasing by two points compared to the beginning of the year. The starts (i.e. the hiring) closed 2023 with a drop of 25% and the first three months of the year were a series of negative signs: January -22%, February -17%, March -12%. Conversely, the social safety nets have made a leap forward: putting together the INPS and Fsba (crafts) data, the use of CIG in the first quarter of 2024 was growing in January (+8.7%), February (+8. 1%) and March (+12.9%).
Some provisional data relating to craftsmanship indicate that in reality between March and April the use of social safety nets is slightly decreasing (the overall increase would therefore be attributable to a greater growth of tools aimed at industry) but this is not necessarily good news, on the contrary: since the crisis began to bite already in autumn 2023 and then exploded between end of the year and the beginning of the next, it is possible that some small businesses have run out of cash for weeks (26 between ordinary and extraordinary over a two-year period) and have closed.
«It’s a reasonable hypothesis – he says Simone Balducci of Cna by Scandicci — Companies close at a rate of one/two a week, especially the smaller ones. In 2023, half of 2022 was produced in volume, then there was a further decline in the first quarter of 2024: between March and May orders were further reduced, with the result that today 20% of the 2022 volumes are produced. The most fragile ones jump. The request made by the Region to the Government is one of the commitments made at the crisis table: it is good that concrete attention is being shown to the sector, the increase in the CIG is necessary because the sector is at a standstill: this is a useful measure to buffer the situation current situation, we await the next meetings at the table with the hope that different, more structural measures can also be put into practice”.
The requests made to the Government by President Giani and Councilor Nardini will have to serve to stem the emergency, subsequently the Region will put resources on the table for structural measures with the aim of supporting the fashion sector in reacting to the ongoing structural changes.
On the front of the emergency they are needed two regulatory provisions (hence the letters to the Government): one to reform the CIG in derogation, the other on the credit front to allow the renegotiation of the Covid loans as they are assisted by the state guarantee (the ABI, with a statement to the Corriere Fiorentino, had already made herself available to do her part last May). For the next step, we are considering allocating resources to encourage «support for investments in the supply chain, with the main focus on vertical aggregations – explains the Councilor for Economy Leonardo Marras – The idea is that companies get together to realize projects capable of consolidating the sector and responding to growing challenges, especially those linked to sustainability.”
