Self-employed down, payroll stable

(see related)(ANSA) - Rome, August 31 - The latest employment numbers show a drop in the self-employed while payroll workers remained stable, Labor Minister Giuliano Poletti said Wednesday. "Self-employed workers dropped in July after rising the previous month," he said. "Payroll worker figures remained stable". The outlook "remains positive" in both the medium and the long term, Poletti added. "There were 157,000 new jobs in May-July, and 266,000 new jobs created on a yearly basis," he continued. Of these, 244,000 were stable jobs with permanent contracts. "There are 585,000 more employed individuals since the (Premier Matteo) Renzi government was inaugurated (in February 2014)," Poletti pointed out. "They were 22,180,000, now they are 22,765,000. We must confirm our support for expansive economic policies that support consumption and investments in order to consolidate and improve these results".