In 2021, Italy employed an average of 4 million 588 thousand people between the ages of 55 and 64, with an increase of 1 million 775 thousand units compared to 10 years earlier. This is what emerges from the latest tables on employment in Europe released by Eurostat, according to which, in the same period, employment in the older group has grown in the EU by over 11 million units. Thanks to the reforms that increased the age of access to retirement and the demographic trend in 2021, 53.4% of people between the ages of 55 and 64 worked in Italy, with an increase of 15.9 percentage points. The figure is even more evident for women (+16.1 points, from 27.9% to 44%).
Younger employed people are decreasing
In the last 10 years, on the basis of the Istat series built on the old rules on retirement outgoings, or considering those who had been in layoffs for more than three months as employed, the youngest employed, those in the range between 15 and 34 years have decreased by almost one million units (between 5.88 million and 4.90 between 2011 and 2020). But if you look at 2001, there were 8.3 million people in employment between the ages of 15 and 34, over three million more. Last year, on the basis of the new rules that do not consider those who have been in cash for more than three months to be employed, the employees between the ages of 15 and 34 were 4 million 929 thousand.
Among the senior workers employed above the EU average
Returning to the older group, according to Eurostat the employment rate among seniors in Italy increased by 15.9 points, more than the EU average (15.4 points, from 45.1 in 2011 to 60.5%) also thanks to pension reforms. In 2001, according to data based on previous rules, 1.88 million people aged 55-64 were employed, about 2.7 million fewer than people of the same age in 2020. The employment rate was 28% and just 16.2% for women (10 points less than the EU average).
Effect of demographic trends but not only
Therefore, if in 2001 there were about four young people under 35 at work compared to a worker over 55 (1.8 million elderly compared to 8.3 million young people, data considered with the old rules), in 2021 the quantities are almost the same, with 4 million 929 thousand young people between the ages of 15 and 34 compared to 4 million 588 thousand workers between the ages of 55 and 64. The collapse is not only linked to demographic trends. If in 2001 people between 15 and 34 years of age at work were 54.1% of their age group, in 2020 they were 39.8%, a figure which has risen (according to the new rules) to 41% in 2021.