ROME: Italy’s jobless rate was unexpectedly unchanged in December, signaling the risk that the effect of new labor legislation on hiring might cease without an acceleration of economic growth. The rate remained at 11.4 percent, a three-year low, national statistics agency Istat said Tuesday in Rome. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of seven analysts called for 11.2 percent.
Euro-area unemployment fell in December to 10.4 percent, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said. The jobless rate in Germany, the region’s economic superpower, unexpectedly declined to a record low 6.2 percent in January, a separate report from the Federal Labor Agency in Nuremberg showed.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s Jobs Act and other legislation overhauling the country’s labor code were implemented in the last two years, making it possible for companies to fire and hire more easily. The new rules also include tax breaks to reward those employers who hire people on an open-ended basis. Some of those incentives are set to be phased-out during 2016, making the option of converting contracts progressively less appealing to businesses.
