Monthly report 2/2022

Recent geopolitical tensions were added at the pre-existing risk factors to the international environment determining for the moment mostly a huge increase in commodities prices.

The deceleration of Italian GDP growth in the last part of the year has been followed by a fall in industrial production in January.

Employment evolved accordingly to the business cycle with a marginal increase in Q4 while in January the rate of employment was substantially stable, a drop for unemployed persons occurred and inactive people rose.

According to preliminary estimates, in February, the Italian harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) increased by 0.8% on monthly basis and by 6.2% on annual basis (+5.1% in January). The differential with euro area inflation remained positive.

Thought, at the moment, an estimation of the impact of the international crisis is extremely complex, a counterfactual analysis of the Italian economy shows that the actual level of oil prices might subtract 0.7 percentage points to GDP growth in 2022