The work of foreign citizens is worth 134 billion and accounts for 9% of the gross domestic product. It is one of the main data contained in the 2021 Annual Report on the economy of immigration by the Leone Moressa Foundation, which will be presented in Rome on Friday 15 October, at the Chamber of Deputies.
The impact of the pandemic, starting from last year, was also felt on the employment of foreigners: compared to 2019, those who work in Italy increased by over 2.5 million (10.7% of total employees ), to 2.34 million (10.2% of employees). In other words, almost 160,000 jobs have been lost, just under 60,000 EU citizens and 100,000 non-EU citizens (see also the 11th Annual Report of the Ministry of Labor on foreigners employed in Italy).
For the most part, as happened for Italian workers, the people who were left without employment joined the group of inactive people (which for foreigners, in 2020, numbers 1.3 million people).
Thus, compared to 2019, the value of the “wealth” produced by foreigners has also decreased: in 2019 it was worth 14 billion more, or 148 billion, with an incidence on GDP of 9.5 per cent.
The regional detail
The calculation of the «GDP of immigration» was carried out by the Leone Moressa Foundation starting from the added value produced by the employed in Italy and assuming that, with the same sector and region, the productivity of foreign workers is the same as that of Italians. Istat data relating to 2020 added value (1,490 billion) were used, broken down on a territorial basis and then divided by the number of employees.