Italian families hit hard by recession
One in three households struggle to make ends meet
04 December, 18:38
(ANSA) - Rome, December 4 - The global recession
has taken a heavy toll on Italian families according to an
annual survey released Friday by socioeconomic think-tank
Censis.One in three households polled in the study reported dipping into their savings, skipping bills and borrowing money to make ends meet.
Over half of Italian families this year earned less than 15,000 euros, while less than 2.2% declared more than 70,000.
Over one million families live so far beneath the poverty line, they cannot afford to feed themselves properly.
Around 763,000 jobs were lost this year between people fired, placed on temporary suspension, employed by enterprises which shut down or whose temporary contracts were not renewed. The majority of those finding themselves without work were men, 56.4%, while 42% had worked in industry, 27.1% in the transformation sector, 15.1% in construction, 14.5% in retail and 9.1% in the services sector. National statistics bureau Istat reported last week that Italy's unemployment rate in October rose to 8% of the labor force, its highest since November 2004, with the number of unemployed surpassing the two- million mark for the first time since March 2004.
Despite the rise in unemployment, Censis said Italy had weathered the crisis better than other countries. In the first six months of the year, compared to the same period in 2008, employment in Italy fell by 1.6%, compared to 7.2% in Spain and 2% in Britain. Helping to contrast the trend of closing Italian businesses were an increasing number of small enterprises run by immigrants.
In the first six months of the year, the number of small businesses operated by immigrants rose 2.4%, which now account for 6% of the total.
