Unemployment rate back to 12.7% in February – Reuters Italy

Elvira Pollina

MILAN / ROME (Reuters) – Back to point up the Italian unemployment rate, indicating how the labor market struggling to regain momentum, despite the tax cuts put in place by the government to the open-ended contracts and signs of confidence coming from the business world.

According to numbers released this morning by Istat, the unemployment rate in February has now grown to 12, 7%, while expectations gathered by Reuters among economists converged on a stable reading to 12.6%, the level marked in January.

Compared to January the employed decreased by 0.2% (-44,000), the unemployed increased by 0.7% (+23,000), while the number of inactive grows by 0.1% (+9,000) in comparison with January.

“The data reveal a drop in employment after two months of growth, confirming an evaluation that I have repeatedly stressed: in the queue to a crisis things tend not to be stabilized and it is conceivable that a positive phase can follow a decline” , said in a statement the Labour Minister Giuliano Poletti.

L ‘ Executive is preparing to improve the growth estimates for this year, bringing to 0.7-0.8% and the hope is that the macro environment more favorable to the combined tax relief and tax for permanent hiring, available from January in addition to the low amount of rules for hiring this month via the new contract protections can restart the growing labor market.

Dispose of the aftermath of a recession lasting three years is not easy, however. The photograph shows Istat a factual situation stagnant.

In the period from December to February, in fact, employment has remained essentially stable on the previous three months, while the unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percentage points, although to a large extent for the return of the inactivity rate (+0.3 points).

On the other hand compared to February 2014, employment grew 0.4% (+93,000 units) and the employment rate by 0.2 points to 55.7%. More …