half a million more employed people in 2022, unemployment down to 8.1% – Corriere.it

The employment rate goes up and the unemployment rate goes down. Istat has published the survey on the workforce underlining how on average in 2022 the employed grew by 545,000 units in 2021 with an employment rate of 60.1% (+1.9 points). At the same time, the unemployment rate dropped to 8.1% (-1.4 percentage points). People looking for work on average for the year decreased by 339,000 units, to 2 million 27,000. On average last year, against an increase in employment of over half a million, permanent employees grew by 346,000, temporary ones by 147,000. Independents grew by 52,000.

The comparison between the quarters and the January (provisional) data

Positive numbers even if you only look at the fourth quarter of 2022. Employed people grew by 120,000 over the third quarter, reaching 23,250,000 with an occupancy rate of 60.6%. In the fourth quarter, the unemployment rate fell to 7.8% (-0.1 points in three months) and the inactivity rate to 34.2% (-0.3 points). For Istat, the increase in permanent employees (+166,000, +1.1%) more than offset the drop in fixed-term employees (-36,000, -1.2% in three months) and independents (-9 thousand, -0.2%). The provisional data for the month of January 2023 instead signal, compared to the previous month, a further growth in employed persons (+35 thousand, +0.2%), an increase in the unemployed (+33 thousand, +1.7%) and the decline in inactive people (-83 thousand, -0.7%).

Wages and inflation

Istat then reports the data on salaries. The record inflation recorded in the average of 2022 (Ipca + 8.7%) led to a marked reduction in the purchasing power of both contractual wages and de facto wages for ULA. Contractual cash wages, on average in 2022, increased by +3% compared to the previous year, recording a more marked growth than that of the 2021 average (+0.7%). This change reflects the disbursement of salary increases (table increases and arrears) relating to the contract renewals for public administration employees for the three-year period 2019-2021. In the total of industry and private services, contractual cash wages increase by only +0.9%synthesis of the increase of +1.6% in the industrial sector and of +0.4% in that of market services.