(ANSA) - Rome, August 31 - Premier Paolo Gentiloni on
Thursday hailed the rise in Italian employment to a post-2008
high.
Gentiloni tweeted: "employed Italians over 23 million, a
record.
"Still a lot to be done against unemployment, but positive
effects of #jobs act and recovery".
Ex-premier Matteo Renzi, the leader of Gentiloni's
centre-left Democratic Party (PD), earlier said his
controversial 2014 Jobs Act labour-market hiring-and-firing
reform had created almost a million jobs.
"ISTAT data: +918THOUSAND jobs since February 2014 to today.
The #Jobs Act creates a million jobs, now #forward", he tweeted,
citing the title of his recent book.
The number of people in work rose above 23 million in July,
for the first time since 2008, the start of Italy's long
recession, ISTAT said Thursday.
The number of employed in July was 23.063 million, the
highest since October 2008 when it was 23.081 million.
The number of people in work in Italy rose by 59,000 (0.3%)
between June and July, and by 294,000 between July 2017 and July
2017, a gain of 1.3%, ISTAT said.
Italy's unemployment rate rose 0.2% to 11.3% from June to
July, ISTAT said.
Italy's youth unemployment rate rose 0.3% between June and
July, to 35.5%, the national statistics agency said.
Italy's rate of 'inactivity' fell sharply to a new low of
34.4%.
photo: Gentiloni with Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan
Gentiloni hails employment record rise
'Still much to be done' says PM