Companies with fewer than 20 employees are more than 4 million (equal to 98,2 percent of the total) and give 8 millions jobs among workers and employees, equal to 56,4 per cent of all private sector employees present in Italy (data, updated to 2015, were presented by Eurostat in June of 2018 and are referred to the private sector only.They are excluded from employment in agriculture, financial services / insurance, in the sectors of education, health / social assistance and artistic activities / entertainment). No other Eurozone country can count on an audience of micro companies so fundamental for employment. To say it is the Study Office of the CGIA.
Paolo Zabeo, coordinator of the Studies Office, declares:
"We estimate that at least 70 per cent of these tiny entrepreneurs before starting their own business have worked as an employee. An experience that has been crucial for the training and know-how of these business owners who, among other things, have always had a relationship with their workers based on stability, respect and friendship. These values are the basis of the extraordinary employment results achieved by these companies, in which the employee is a resource and not, as often happens in large companies, a simple number ".
As we said, in the Italian realities with less than 20 employees works the 56,4 per cent of the employed in the private sector; the Eurozone average, instead, stands at 39,9 per cent, that is 16,5 percentage points lower than in Italy.
Equally significant are the results reported by France and Germany. If in the first case the incidence is 34,7 percent, in the second it goes down to 30,5 percent. Proving that in these two countries, the economy is the big one and not the small business.
“Our micro companies - reports the CGIA Secretary Renato Mason - represent the backbone of the economy of our country and also play a very important social role. Unfortunately, we almost always notice it too late, or when they are gone. The closures of many small shops and artisan shops in recent years, in fact, have made the historic centers and, above all, the suburbs of our cities more insecure and less livable ".
In addition to the high number and the extraordinary employment repercussions, the micro productive realities - made up of millions of artisans, traders, traders and very small entrepreneurs - are also important for the weight of the turnover and the added value they produce. According to the latest data referring to 2015, Italian companies with fewer than 20 employees generated 1.071 billion in turnover, accounting for 35,9 percent of the national total. As for the added value, that is the wealth produced in the country, these very small activities have achieved 286 billion euros, equal to 9,9 per cent of the national total.
Still in terms of work, the CGIA Studies Office has also estimated the trend of the employed and unemployed expected in the second half of this year. According to the forecasts made before the summer by the European Commission and Prometeia, in the last 6 months of the year we should register, compared to the same period of 2017, 36 thousand occupied more (+ 0,2 percent) and 25 thousand unemployed less ( -0,9 percent).
Positive signals that, despite the braking of the GDP, will allow us to bring the audience of the employed to 23.174.000 units, exceeding the maximum point of 23.112.000 units reached in the 2008. Job seekers, on the other hand, will fall to 2.800.000. A figure, that of the unemployed, which still remains above one and a half million jobs without which we counted in 2007, or the year before the crisis.
Despite the general scenario tending to beauty, many corporate crises remain open. At 30 last June, in fact, the tables at the Ministry of Economic Development were 144, with at least 189.000 workers involved. Of these companies, 31 have ceased all or part of their activities in Italy to relocate abroad. Finally, we would like to remind you that the most critical situations that Minister Di Maio will have to face in the coming weeks are those of Alitalia, Almaviva, Bekaert, Ilva and Italiaonline (formerly Pagine Gialle).