Unemployment could be 25% without govt aid - Catalfo

(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 29 - Labour Minister Nunzia Catalfo said Thursday that Italy's unemployment rate could have climbed as high as 25% without the government's aid packages after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
    Speaking at the presentation of the annual report of pensions-and-social-security agency INPS, Catalfo said: "as the INPS report shows, we protected jobs, workers and businesses in order to tackle the pandemic.
    "The COVID fund and halt to dismissals averted an employment haemorrhage that would have affected millions of workers and the consequences would have been terrible for the whole country," she added.
    "As the ECB's bulletin highlighted, unemployment could have reached 25% without these measures".
    She said that the government measures adopted since March to support business and families were worth around 50 billion euros. (ANSA).