Svimez the shock report: South in recession in 2023, GDP in the Center and North will grow by 0.8%

In 2023, the GDP of the South would contract by up to -0.4%, while that of the Centre-North, while remaining positive at +0.8%, would show a sharp slowdown compared to 2022. The Italian average figure should instead be around + 0.5%. This is what emerges from the Svimez 2022 report, now in its 49th edition, presented today to the Chamber of Deputies. The new shock has changed the sign of global dynamics (slowdown of the recovery; appearance of new social emergencies; new operational risks for businesses), “interrupting the cohesive national recovery path between North and South”.
According to Svimez, the worsening of the economic situation in 2023 will be determined above all by the «contraction in household consumption spending, against the continuation of the expansionary cycle, albeit in a sharp slowdown in the Centre-North (+0.8%)». 2024 should be “a year of recovery, in the wake of the general improvement in the international economy, together with the continuation of the return from inflation which drops to +2.5% and +3.2% in the Centre-North and in the South in the year”. It is estimated that the GDP will increase by 1.5% at the national level in 2024, due to the effect of +1.7% in the Centre-North and +0.9% in the South. The figure for the South, «in itself appreciable given that it should return to positive territory after the decline in 2023, it would still be significantly lower than that of the rest of the country”. A structural aspect that helps to explain «the weak recovery in the South can be traced on the supply side: following the continuous shrinkage of the production base suffered by the South since 2008, the capacity of the production system in the area to engage the phases expansionary factors of the economic cycle”.
Women’s occupation
And the gap is clear “between the female employment rates of the South and the Centre-North, which in terms of number of employed people is quantified at 1.6 million”. In the new report presented today to the Chamber of Deputies, Svimez underlines that «the female employment rate in the South is very far from the European average – observes Svimez – in Italy the gap with Europe, of about 10 points at the beginning of the century, is further increased, approaching 15 points in 2022.
The importance of basic income
“The Citizenship Income has played a fundamental role in containing poverty: without the measure, there would have been almost 2.5 million poor families, almost 450,000 more than in 2020, which correspond to over 1 million fewer people in a absolute poverty, of which 750,000 in the South”. To say it is Luca Bianchi, general manager of Svimez, recognizing that the tool was however ineffective in accompanying the beneficiaries towards work. In the South, due to the lack of job offers and the inefficiencies of employment services, out of an audience of around half a million employables, only 1 out of 5 received an offer. According to Bianchi, the part relating to job placement must therefore be strengthened, but on the other hand, attention must be paid to intervening on those who can be employed, because precisely «4 out of 5 have not even received a job offer. That is a basin to be emptied by implementing active policies, but cutting the instrument “at any moment risks creating new forms of poverty”.