Record-breaking occupations. Ideas from an Italy that the CGIL does not see

Nobody denies that around 3 million fixed-term contracts constitute a stock of precarious work that should worry both those who govern and the main social players, but this correct attention must be reconciled with the analysis of the real trends in the flow of the labor market. And yesterday Istat reported to us that in April 2023 there was a new increase in employed persons (+48,000, equal to 0.2 percent). The even more intriguing fact is that this increase is actually the algebraic sum of an even more substantial increase in open-ended contracts (+74,000) and a decrease in the flow of new fixed-term contracts, which fell by 30,000 in a month . Up to now we have talked about month-to-month comparisons, April to March, but if we move to the trend, i.e. a 12-month comparison, the number of jobs has grown by as much as 390,000 units and, as in the previous case, the driving forces are permanent jobs increased by 468,000 units from which 149,000 precarious contracts must be deducted. To make ends meet, 71,000 more self-employed workers need to be noted from April ’22 to April ’23. All of these dynamics bring the total number of employed people to 23.446 million and improve a whole series of indicators. The employment rate rose to 61 per cent, the unemployment rate fell to 7.8 per cent and the inactivity rate also fell to 33.6 per cent. The increases in employment concern both men and women and all age groups with the exception of the 35-49 range due to the negative demographic dynamics.