Unemployment claims down 12.3% in first 11 months of 2016

(ANSA) - Rome, January 19 - Some 1.7 million people in Italy received unemployment benefits in the first 11 months of 2016, down 12.3% on the previous year, said INPS social security and pensions agency on Thursday.
    It said 200,678 people ​made unemployment claims in November 2016, up 0.9% on November 2015 figures​, while in October claims remained stable.
    In 2016 companies requested 581 million hours of the Cassa Integrazione (CIG) benefit for workers who have been temporarily laid off or had their hours reduced by companies in financial difficulty, down 14.8% on 2015 and at the lowest level since 2008, INPS said.
    Companies requested 37.7 million CIG hours in December, in line with November at 37.9 million, and down 11% on December 2015.
    INPS said employers issued 1.5 million permanent contracts in the first 11 months of 2016, while 1.44 million were terminated, a difference of 65,989 contracts with a 90% decrease on 2015 (660,626) when a 100% tax break was in place for permanent contracts.
    New hires in the first 11 months of 2016 were 1.15 million, down 32.3% on the same period in 2015.
    Contract terminations for disciplinary reasons were up 27% in the first 11 months of 2016, with 67,374 terminations compared to 53,056 in the same period in 2015.
    Overall terminations were up 4% at 561,862 compared to 539,933 in 2015.
    INPS said the connection of terminations to the new increasing protections on permanent contracts was still unclear.
    Resignations over the same period were down 13.5%, from 835,754 to 722,370, most likely also due to the possibility of online resignation.