Lucrezia Ciotti Italy continues to show a strong gap on the employment front. Eurostat data for 2024 show a worrying situation for the South of the country, where four regions are among the last four in the entire European Union in terms of employment rate. An alarm signal that confirms the structural difficulties of the South in creating work stable and quality, despite the measures implemented in recent years.
The gap with the most virtuous regions in Europe remains wide, raising questions about employment policies and investments aimed at the most fragile areas of the country.
Female employment: the gap between Italy and the EU
Currently, in Italy, the rate of occupation female stands at 53,3%, a fact that is well below the European average of 66,2%. However, the picture varies significantly depending on the area of the country.
In the northern regions, in fact, the female employment rate is very close to the European average, with the autonomous province of Bolzano even exceeding this value, reaching an excellent 68,6%. On the contrary, in the South the situation appears more critical, with a still large gap compared to the objectives set by the European Union.
If we look at overall employment, considering both men and women, the gap between Italy and the EU has narrowed in recent years: today it is 8,6 points (70,8% in Europe versus 62,2% in Italy), an improvement compared to 8,9 points in 2023. However, gender inequality remains marked.
For the men, in fact, the gap is only 4,3 points, while for women is expanding significantly, reaching a worrying 12,9 points away from the European average. This clearly reflects the persistent difficulties for women in accessing the labour market, especially in the southern regions of the country.
Work, four Italian regions at the bottom of the EU rankings
Despite a general increase in employment in Italy, the South continues to experience significant difficulties, with three of its regions remaining among the bottom four in the entire European Union.
According to Eurostat data for 2024, after Guyana, an overseas region of France, the areas with the lowest employment rates among 15 to 64 year olds are Calabria, with 44,8% (+0,2% compared to 2023), the Campania with 45,4% (+1%) and the Sicilia with 46,8% (+1,9%). While in Europe the average stands at 70,8%, in Italy the overall figure is 62,2%.
Excluding overseas regions, such as Guyana and Reunion for France, and Melilla and Ceuta for Spain, the regions of Southern Italy occupy the last four places in the European ranking for employment rate. In particular, the Puglia, with a rate of 51,2% (+1,5% compared to 2023), is among the regions with the worst results, together with Calabria, Campania and Sicily. Compared to the European regions with the highest employment rate, such as Zeeland in the Netherlands (84,5%), the distance is over 30 percentage points, almost 40 points for Campania.
In an apparent contradiction, the data show that the rate of employment growth in Southern Italy (+0,4 points) is higher than the European Union average, but the gap remains huge, mainly due to the low female participation in the labor market. Campania, with a female employment rate of 32,3%, is the European region with the lowest percentage of women in employment, followed by Calabria (33,1%) and Sicily (34,9%).
Le differences It's not just about women: for men too, territorial disparities are evident. In some German regions, over 84% of men of working age are employed, while in Calabria the figure stops at 56,6%, surpassed only by some overseas regions such as Reunion and Guadeloupe.