Employment is growing in Italy, but precarious. The INPS Observatory on the labor market has released the June numbers, thus making a snapshot of the employment situation in the first half of the year. 940 thousand more contracts in the first six months of the year, but they are down compared to 2023 and above all fixed-term and occasional contracts are increasing.
In June, 440 thousand new positions were registered in the private sector. But there was a decrease in permanent hires in the month – 96,271 and an increase in fixed-term ones + 342 thousand. Occasional work boomed with a + 14%. Positive trend that brings total hires in the first six months of the year to 4 million 294 thousand (excluding domestic workers and agricultural workers). Slight decrease (-1.6%) compared to the same period of 2023 and the most accentuated decreases are precisely for permanent contracts (-5.3%) and for apprenticeship contracts (-11.2%). For stable contracts the balance was positive for 244,108 units, down compared to 292,501 in the first six months of 2023.
As regards the type of working hours, the incidence of part-time has slightly increased in the total of fixed-term hires (37%) while it is substantially stable in permanent hires (31%). In the second quarter, new fixed-term employment relationships were 518,754, of which almost 400 thousand were horizontal part-time, an increase both on 2023 and on the first quarter.
In the first half of the year, the transformations of positions from fixed-term to permanent also decreased by 6% compared to 2023. They were 380 thousand. On the other hand, terminations were stable, which from January to June 2024 were 3 million 354 thousand. Resignations decreased by 2.8% in a year. Layoffs increased, with an increase of almost 10% for permanent contracts.
The balance, in conclusion, is still positive with + 440,000 job positions. In June, almost 800,000 workers were hired with a fixed-term or precarious employment contract. There are over 2.5 million precarious workers in Italy (2,757,000).
