Toscana Notizie – Flash Lavoro n. 58/2023

AN OVERVIEW

“In the third quarter of 2023, in Italy, labor input—measured by hours worked—and GDP rose both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year, although the latter showed weaker growth. Labor input increased by 0.4% compared to the second quarter of 2023, and GDP by 0.1%; the increase compared to the third quarter of 2022 stood at 1.8% and 0.1%, respectively.”

In Tuscany, labor demand, as reflected in new hires, shows a slight slowdown with a year-over-year decline of -0.4% and a -1.2% drop compared to the previous quarter. The number of salaried employees, however, continues to grow: +3.4% compared to the same quarter of 2022 and +0.8% compared to the second quarter of 2023. Growth is driven by stable employment—the sum of permanent employees and apprentices—which increased by 41,000 units, compared to a gain of just 3,000 for temporary employees. Positive trends, compared to the second quarter of 2022, are observed in nearly all productive sectors. In manufacturing, the most significant increases are seen in jewelry, the production of machinery and mechanical equipment, and the pharmaceutical industry.

The leather sector continues to show signs of difficulty, having not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels and posting a very slight decline compared to 2022; the same is true for the marble industry, which shows no change and a decline compared to 2019; growth continues in the construction sector. In the service sector, tourism services stand out for their substantial increase, while banking services show a steady and significant decline. The number of unemployed estimated by ISTAT decreased by 8,000, benefiting only men; the unemployment rate fell from 4.8% to 4.5%, while for women, there was an increase, from 5.1% to 5.8%.

Focus
POLARISATION IN THE LABOUR MARKET: A GENDER PERSPECTIVE

By Natalia Faraoni

The transformations of the labor market over the last twenty years have been widely interpreted as a process of polarization, first highlighted in the United States and then explored in Europe. This polarization occurs through a combined growth of the extremes of the workforce—the most and least skilled—compared to a depletion of the middle segments of workers. The reasons for this shift toward the extremes of the distribution are traced to the effects of the so-called digital transition: the growing diffusion of 4.0 technologies creates a new demand for skilled labor, while simultaneously eliminating more repetitive tasks, both cognitive and manual. The weight of manufacturing labor has indeed declined, driven both by the introduction of technological innovations and by relocations to countries with lower labor costs. This has favored the tertiarization of the economy, with the emergence of highly specialized figures in the provision of advanced services, but also by the growing weight of personal services, driven by the aging population and the defamiliarization of care activities.
Italy represents an anomaly in this panorama, as studies on the national situation highlight how the increased demand for low-skilled labor in the service sector has not been matched by an equal growth in skilled employment. This is due to the under-absorption of graduate workers by our productive system, compounded by weak demand from the public sector, which has been slowed for many years by hiring freezes.
Evidently, in the post-pandemic period, the economic activities in which job positions have increased the most have been tourism, logistics, and personal services, where demand for low-skilled professions is particularly high. It may be interesting to apply a gender perspective to this type of analysis. The horizontal and vertical segregation phenomena that characterize female employment are well-known, as is the growth in the number of women with high school diplomas and college degrees in recent decades, demonstrating a greater propensity to participate in the labor market and the possession of specific skills. However, obstacles to full female employment remain, mainly attributable to the burden of family care and lower average incomes.