Labour market - Q2 2023

The labour input, as measured by hours worked, decreased by -0.5% compared to the previous quarter and increased by 1.3% compared to the second quarter of 2022. In the same period GDP decreased by 0.4% quarter-on-quarter and increased by 0.4% year-on-year.

In the second quarter 2023, the number of employed people increased by 129 thousand units (+0.6% compared to the first quarter of 2023), due to the growth of permanent employees (+130 thousand, +0.8%) and self-employed (+23 thousand, +0.5%), which more than offset the decline in temporary employees (-25 thousand, -0,8% in three months); instead the number of unemployed decreases (-64 thousand, -3.2% in three months) as does that of the inactive population aged 15-64 (-66 thousand, -0.5%). The rates show a similar trend: the employment rate rises to 61.3% (+0.3 percentage points), the unemployment rate drops to 7.6% (-0.3 percentage points), and the inactivity rate for people aged 15-64 falls to 33.5% (-0.1 percentage points). In the provisional seasonally adjusted data for July 2023 there is a decrease in the employed (-73 thousand, -0.3% compared to the previous month), an increase in the unemployed (+37 thousand, +1.9%) and a slight incrase of the inactive people (+14 thousand, +0.1%); this results in a drop in the employment rate (-0.2 percentage points), an increase in the unemployment rate (+0.2 percentage points) and the stability of the inactivity rate.

Employment also increases compared to the second quarter of 2022 (+395 thousand, +1.7% in one year), involving permanent employees (+3.0%) and self-employed (+1.1%), while the number of temporary employees decreases (-3.2%); the number of unemployed people continues to decrease (-101 thousand in one year, -5.0%) as well as the number of inactive individuals aged 15-64 (-376 thousand, -3.0%). This trend is reflected in the growth of the employment rate (+1.2 percentage points compared to the second quarter of 2022) and the decrease in the unemployment and inactivity rates (-0.5 and -0.9 percentage points, respectively).

On the enterprise side, the growth of total employee jobs slows down compared to the previous quarter, settling overall by +0.7%, due to a deceleration of the growth in both components: equal to +0.8% for full-time and to +0.4% for the part-time. On an annual basis whereas, the growing dynamic of total employee jobs continues with an increase of 2.8%, due to a more marked growth of the full-time component (+3.2%) compared to that of part time (+1.7%).The hours worked per employee show a decrease on a quarterly basis (-1.9%) while they remain unchanged on annual basis. The use of short-time working allowances falls to 6.7 hours per 1,000 hours worked (-1.5 hours per 1,000 hours worked with respect to the second quarter 2022). The job vacancy rate increases by 0.2 compared to the previous quarter and increases by 0.1 percentage points compared to the same quarter of the previous year. The total labour cost remained stable compared to the previous quarter, as a result of a +0.3% growth in wages and a -0.6% reduction in social security contributions; on annual basis on the other hand, it recorded a sustained growth of 2.4%, due to the increase in the wages and salaries (+2.1%) and, even more, to that of social security contributions (+3.4%).