MILAN: Italy’s unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2017 stood at 11.6%, down 0.2 percentage point from the previous quarter, data from statistics bureau ISTAT showed.
The employment rate in the quarter stood at 57.6%, up 0.2 percentage point from the fourth quarter and 0.9 percentage point above the year earlier.
The number of the inactive aged 15-64 (-473 thousand in a year) kept on decreasing as well as the corresponding inactivity rate. In the year-on-year comparison inactivity reduction was spread over gender, territory and age class, it involved both persons willing to work (-291 thousand potential labour forces) and those farther from the labour market (-183 thousand persons not seeking and not available for work).
Changes in stock evidenced significant changes in the labour market condition of persons, as measured by flow data over a twelve-month period. Permanence in employment increased as a whole (+0.4 points) but the transitions from fixed-term to permanent employee decreased (from 24.2% to 19.6%). Moreover the transitions from inactivity towards unemployment (+0.9 points) and to a lesser extent towards employment (+0.4 points) increased.
As for enterprises, the signs of growth in labour demand were confirmed with an increase of employee jobs by 0.6% to the previous quarter, as a result of a rise in both industry and services. However the hours worked per employee decreased (-0.6%), though the use of short-time working allowance hours decreased as well.
Vacancy rate remained unchanged on a quarter-on-quarter basis, while increased by 0.2 percentage points year-on-year. On a quarter-on-quarter basis wages and salaries increased (+0.5%) as well as labour cost (0.6%). A part of the latter was due to the larger rise in social security contributions (+1.2%), due to the gradual weakening of the effects of the favorable contributions associated to new hiring of permanent employees during the past two years.
