In 2021, the risk of poverty or social exclusion of families with main income from self-employment was higher than that of households that, on the other hand, live on a fixed salary. This result, extrapolated by the CGIA Studies Office on Istat data, testifies, once again, that among the Italian employed the so-called people of VAT numbers (artisans, traders, self-employed workers, freelancers, etc.), has less security and more economic difficulties of employees. Let alone after more than two and a half years of health emergency that between closures by decree and restrictions on mobility have brought to their knees, in particular, a large part of the owners of shops and neighborhood shops. It is not that things have gone better for the workers. For the latter, however, the social safety nets available by law have "dampened" the blow; for those who, on the other hand, after the various lockdowns have been forced to permanently close the business, there is nothing left but to reinvent the future.
• 22,4 per cent of self-employed families are poor
Last year, according to the annual sample survey carried out by Istat, the percentage of families with main income from dependent work who were at risk of poverty or social exclusion was 18,4 per cent; for those with main income from self-employment, on the other hand, it was 22,4 per cent. Compared to previous years, the incidence has decreased in both family types. The only ones who, on the other hand, have seen the situation of economic marginalization increase considerably are the families living on retirement; the incidence from 31,8 percent in 2019 to 33,9 percent in 2021
• Despite the crisis, why is poverty declining among those in work?
How do you explain the contraction of the risk of poverty and social exclusion among the families of employees and, above all, among those of the self-employed who in the last 2,5 years have suffered very negative effects imposed by the pandemic crisis? In the first place, thanks to the aid put in place by the latest governments: between bonuses, refreshments, subsidized contributions and tax credits, in the two-year period 2020-2021 the successive governments have fielded around 180 billion euros which, in part , managed to cushion the effects of the crisis on households and businesses. Secondly, the way in which the investigation is carried out should be noted. It is by telephone and is addressed to the head of the family who carries out his own business, or is employed as an employee in a company. If between one year and the next that small entrepreneur has gone out of business, or has been fired, the recipient of the call is no longer part of their initial "category". In other words, those who with the crisis left the labor market are no longer part of the cluster for which they were the subject of the survey; therefore, a large part of those who find themselves in difficulty who, for example, have been forced to close the business, has "slipped" off the radar of the investigation.
• After the pandemic we have more employees and less self-employed
30 months after the advent of the pandemic, in Italy we have recovered the number of employees. If between February 2020 (the month before the arrival of Covid) and last August (the latest data made available by Istat) we have 56 more employees, the two components that make up the entire stock (employees and self-employed ), on the other hand, show opposite results. The number of self-employed workers, in fact, fell by 155 thousand units. If before the pandemic they were just under 5,2 million, in August they stood at just over 5 million. The number of employees, on the other hand, increased by 211 thousand units. Before the pandemic we had just over 17,8 million, this summer the number jumped to just over 18 million. Although growing, it should nevertheless be noted that the number of employees with permanent contracts has decreased, while the number of "term" workers has increased.
• Many autonomous have slipped towards the submerged
Of course, entrepreneurial risk is part of this experience, but unlike employees, when a self-employed person permanently closes his business, he has practically no income support measures. Once you lose your job, you get back into the game and go in search of a new job. In recent years, unfortunately, it has not been easy to find another: often the age no longer very young and the difficulties of the moment have constituted an insurmountable barrier to reintegration, pushing these people towards forms of completely illegal work. Until about ten years ago, opening a VAT number was the achievement of a dream: a true status symbol. Public opinion placed this new entrepreneur among the higher socio-economic classes. Today, however, this is no longer the case: for a young person, in particular, the opening of the VAT number is often seen as a makeshift or, worse still, as a device that a client imposes on him to avoid hiring him as an employee.
• The expensive bills will make the situation worse
The exponential increase in prices, expensive fuel and bills could considerably worsen the economic situation of many families, especially those made up of self-employed. In recalling that about 70 percent of artisans and traders work alone, that is, they have neither employees nor family collaborators, many are paying twice the extraordinary increase recorded in the last 10 months in electricity and gas bills. The first as home users and the second as small entrepreneurs to heat / cool and light their shops and stores. And despite the mitigation measures introduced in recent months by the Draghi government, energy costs have exploded, reaching levels never seen in the recent past.