Italy’s job crisis is a national emergency – Conte

Italy’s job crisis of the past decade has “taken on the character of a national emergency”, said Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte on Monday, speaking at the presentation of a report by the Association for Industrial Development in the Italian South (SVIMEZ).

“There is still much to be done to ensure adequate employment prospects,” Conte said. The SVIMEZ report showed South Italy entered a recession in 2019 and the area experienced a loss of 2,015,000 residents in the past decade, half of whom were young people.

“The social and economic fabric of our south has been suffering for several decades, and I’m very concerned about the demographic crisis with an unprecedented drop in the birth rate and growing emigration to the north and abroad,” Conte said.

“If the south recovers, Italy recovers. It’s not a slogan, but an affirmation that comes from the knowledge that this must drive government action,” he said.

“In the past 20 years, politics has disinvested in the south, with consequences for the entire country, which has lost competitiveness on a global level,” he said, adding that the current government would make an effort to “turn this trend around”.

Via ANSA