MILANO – The return of the labor market towards a normal situation is very slow, while the economy as a whole confirms better signs than initial expectations.
This is what ISTAT data on employment say for April, which see the growth in employment already recorded in February and March continuing and thus brings the recovery of the employed from January to 120,000. But on the other hand, we come from a shock that many have compared to that of a war and the Institute itself recalls that “compared to February 2020, the month preceding the start of the pandemic, the employed are over 800,000 fewer and the employment rate is nearly 2 percentage points lower. ” Numbers published shortly before those on the economic trend in the first quarter. And in this case, the surprise is positive, given that Istat overturned the first estimates of 30 April last, which indicated a cyclical decline of 0.4%, calculating an increase in GDP for the January-March period (corrected for calendar and seasonally adjusted effects) of 0.1% compared to the previous three months. The estimate for the first quarter of 2020 has also been revised, to -0.8% compared to the -1.4% communicated in April.
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Employed and unemployed are growing, the inactive are decreasing
The growth in employment in April (20 thousand people, + 0.1%) also involved women, temporary employees and the under 35s. On the other hand, men, permanent employees, self-employed and ultra 35 years old. The employment rate thus rose to 56.9% (+0.1 points).
However, there is also an increase in the unemployment rate which reached 10.7% (+0.3 points, top since 2018) with 88,000 more people looking for work. A phenomenon that affected both gender components and all age groups. The unemployment rate among young people fell to 33.7% (-0.2 points).
If unemployment rises in a context of recovery, it is also because more people regain confidence and start looking for work, not finding it. In fact, between March and April the number of inactive people aged 15-64 fell by 1%, -138 thousand units, with a widespread decline in terms of both sex and age. The inactivity rate thus falls to 36.2% (-0.3 points).
It remains that, in April 2020, “job seekers are growing strongly (+ 48.3%, equal to + 870 thousand units), due to the exceptional drop in unemployment that characterized the beginning of the emergency on the other hand, inactive people aged between 15 and 64 decreased (-6.3%, equal to -932 thousand), which in April 2020 had instead recorded a strong increase “.
OECD, in 2021 GDP up by 4.5% but hiring of young people and women not before 2022
by Rosaria Amato
GDP estimate for the first quarter has been revised upwards
Among the other data for the day, as mentioned, Istat has positively updated the quarterly income statements. By bringing the estimates on the short-term variation in national income from -0.4 to + 0.1%, Istat now estimates that the variation acquired for 2021 is equal to +2.6 per cent (this would be the result at the end of the year if for the other quarters the economy remained at a standstill, but the estimates say that a growth of more than 4% is possible thanks to the acceleration expected with the reopening).
In its analysis of the economic trend, the Institute explains that the “moderate recovery” of production in the first quarter of 2021 is the synthesis of an increase in the added value of agriculture and industry and a contraction in the tertiary sector which in some sectors it was still affected by the effects of measures to combat the health emergency due to Covid. On a cyclical basis, agriculture and industry recorded increases of 3.9% and 1.8% respectively, while services recorded a decline of 0.4%.
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