Regional unemployment rate in Italy 2023

In 2023, the highest unemployment rate was registered in the south of Italy. For Campania, Calabria, and Sicily, the shares of citizens without a job ranged from 16.1 percent to 17.8 percent. The disparities in unemployment indicators can be observed not only on the regional level, but also among genders. In 2023, one woman out of five in Campania was without a job, whereas the share of unemployed males was five percent less. The region with the highest percentage of employed individuals, both men and women, was Trentino-South Tyrol. 

Economic crisis in Italy

Unemployment is a serious problem in Italy, which began to worsen alongside the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008. The crisis of the Italian labor market reached its peak in 2014, when 12.7 percent of the citizens were without a job. Since 2015, the situation has been improving; the unemployment rate started a steady decrease, which continued in the following years, reaching 7.6 percent in 2023.

Unemployment in the EU

In August 2023, Italy ranked fifth among the European Union member states with the highest unemployment rate. In Spain, more than eleven percent of all potential employees did not have any occupation.