MILAN. Economy of the South always with the handbrake on: this is confirmed by a research by the Confcommercio Research Office, according to which in the last twenty-five years the share of GDP produced by the South on the national total has decreased, passing from over 24% in 1995 to 22% in 2019, with a level of employment that showed cumulative growth equal to just a quarter of the national average (4.1% against 16.4%). This latter phenomenon is mainly affected by the effects of the reduction in the resident population, in particular the youth population, which in the South fell by over 1.5 million in the period considered.
The South is increasingly distant from the rest of the country and from Europe: since 1995 its weight on the national GDP has been reduced. According to an analysis by the Confcommercio Research Office, “Economy and Employment in the South 2015-2019”, the share of GDP produced by the South on the national total decreased from over 24% in 1995 to 22% in 2019. Among the causes , there would be structural deficits, youth depopulation and under-utilized tourism.
According to the research data, if these factors had less impact, within a few years the southern gross product would grow by more than 20% (+90 billion euros). In addition, between 1995 and 2019 Italy as a whole lost over a million young people (from just over 11 million to just over 10 million) and all this loss is due to southern young people (in the South it was reduced by over 1.5 million in the period considered).