Source: Unioncamere press office
Rome, 11 April 2022 – The total number of new staff expected to be hired by businesses in April is around 368,000, but the impact on the macroeconomic scenario of the crisis in Ukraine and
the significant rise in energy and raw materials costs are starting to have an impact, especially on manufacturing businesses.
The Bulletin of the Excelsior Information System, produced by Unioncamere and ANPAL, which processes the employment forecasts for April, shows a reduction of -8.5% of the
expected entries from the manufacturing sector compared to March (-6 thousand) and -5.9% compared to a year ago (-4 thousand). Construction has also slowed down (-9.4% compared to March and -19.5%
over 12 months ago). On the other hand, services as a whole grew by 7.5% over the month (+19 thousand) and by 39.1% over the year (74 thousand), thanks above all to the recovery of the tourism
sector favoured by the easing of restrictions due to the end of the state of emergency and the upcoming Easter holidays (+14 thousand over the month; +56 thousand over the year).
Demand was also positive in personal services (+5 thousand and +12 thousand respectively) and, to a lesser extent, in commerce (+2 thousand in both cases), although the rapid rise in inflation is
having a negative impact on the sector’s expectations for the coming months. Considering the total economic sectors, the hiring forecasts in April would register a growth of 2.4% compared to last
March (+9 thousand entries) and +20.3% if compared to April 2021 (+62 thousand).
Despite the uncertainties and fears for the economic growth trend, the industry is looking for about 103 thousand workers to be hired in April. At sector level, construction companies are expecting
34 thousand new recruits, followed by the mechatronics industry (18 thousand), metallurgy and metal products (14 thousand) and the food industry (9 thousand). On the other hand, there are 265,000
job opportunities offered by service companies, of which 78,000 in the tourism sector, 45,000 in personal services[2] and 46,000 in commerce. However, negative signs were recorded in the ICT
(-11.8% compared to April 2021) and advanced business services (-6.6%) sectors.
Overall, the flow of hirings is characterised by a prevalence of fixed-term contracts with 199,000 units, equal to 54.1%, followed by permanent contracts (72,000), supply contracts (41,000),
non-employee contracts (23,000), apprenticeship contracts (21,000), other forms of employment contracts (8,000) and collaboration contracts (4,000).
On the whole, the proportion of jobs for which companies declare recruitment difficulties is 40.4% (8.3 percentage points higher than in April 2021), rising to 55.8% for skilled
workers, 47.8% for plant operators and operators of fixed and mobile machinery, 47.4% for technical professions and 47.2% for managers and intellectual and scientific professions. As shown by the
Job Market, the figures for which the difficulty of finding employment exceeds the 60% threshold are, in order: craftsmen and specialised workers for construction finishing (65.6%), foundrymen,
welders, tinsmiths, boilermakers, metal carpentry fitters (64.6%), blacksmiths, toolmakers (63.4%), craft mechanics, fitters, repairers and maintainers of fixed and mobile machinery (61.1%).
Finally, at a territorial level, there has been a pronounced increase compared to a year ago in the flow of entries expected in April in the regions of Southern Italy (+25,000), followed by the
regions of the North East (+20,000). The forecasts for the regions of the Centre (+11,000) and the Northwest (+6,000) are more modest.
