Labour market – Q1 2024

The labour input, as measured by hours worked, increased by 0.6% compared to the previous quarter and increased by 1.5% compared to the first quarter of 2023. In the same period GDP increased by 0.3% quarter-on-quarter and by 0.7% year-on-year.

In the first quarter 2024, the number of employed people increased by 75 thousand units (+0.3% compared to the fourth quarter of 2023), following the growth of permanent employees (+92 thousand, +0.6%) and of independent employees (+32 thousand, +0,6%) which more than offset the growth of temporary employees (-49 thousand, -1.7%); the number of unemployed decreases (-55 thousand, -2.9% in three months) and the number of inactive people aged 15-64 increases (+37 thousand, +0.3%). The rates show a similar trend: the employment rate rises to 62.0% (+0.1 percentage points), the unemployment rate falls to 7.2% (-0.2 percentage points), and the inactivity rate for people aged 15-64 rises to 33.1% (+0.1 percentage points). In the provisional data for the month of April 2024, compared to the previous month, the increase in the number of employed people (+84 thousand, +0.4%) and in the employment rate (+0.1 percentage points) is associated with the decrease of the unemployment rate (-0.2 points) and with a stability of the inactivity rate aged 15-64.

In the first quarter 2024, employment also increases compared to the first quarter of 2023 (+394 thousand, +1.7% in one year), involving, also in this case, permanent employees (+3.1%) and self-employed (+1.0%); the number of temporary employees decreases (-4.6%) as does the number of unemployed (-123 thousand in one year, -5.9%) and the number of inactive persons aged 15-64 (-233 thousand, -1.9%). This trend is reflected in the growth of the employment rate (+0.9 percentage points compared to the first quarter of 2023) and the decrease in the unemployment and inactivity rates (boths -0.6 points).

On the enterprise side, on a quarterly basis, total employee jobs continue to grow, recording an increase of 0.8% in total, slightly lower for the full-time component (0.7%) and fairly higher for part-time (0.9%). On a annual basis, the growth of total employee jobs continues in this quarter, equal to 2.8% in total, slightly higher for the full-time component (+2.9%) compared to part-time (+2.6%). The hours worked per employee show a increase on both a quarterly basis (+0.6%) and annual basis (+0.4%). The use of short-time working allowances slightly increases to 7.8 hours per 1,000 hours worked (+1.3 hours per 1,000 hours worked with respect to the first quarter 2023). The job vacancy rate decreases both compared to previous quarter (-0.3 percentage points) and with respect to the same quarter of the previous year (-0.2 percentage points). The total labour cost compared to the previous quarter, rises to 0.1%, with a growth of the same intensity in its components, wages and social security contributions; compared to the same quarter of 2023, labour cost increases more intensely, equal to 1.6%, mostly driven by the wage component (+1.8%) than by social contributions (+0.9%).