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Changes in the Italian Employment Structure and Job Quality

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Abstract

This paper contributes to the literature on changes in the employment structure, focusing on the job quality created and destroyed over the recent years in the Italian Southern regions compared to Central and Northern ones and with European regions with similar characteristics. In the 2014–2019 period, the economic gap between Central-Northern regions and the South area has been widening. In South Italy, the share of workers with low quality occupations has further in-creased, while the rest of the country experienced a growth in high quality jobs. In particular, the employment growth in the South has mainly involved those traditional sectors (such as hotels and restaurants) that employ low-skilled workers, while Central-Northern regions have been driven by knowledge intensive services and high-skilled manufacturing. Even compared with other lagging regions in the European Union, Southern Italy showed less favourable trends, especially if compared to German and French areas.

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Fig. 1

Source: LFS, Eurostat

Fig. 2

Source: author’s calculation on LFS, Eurostat, and Eurofound. Ranking 2014. (1) Ranking is calculated at the national level on the total economy (which excludes activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies). The private sector additionally excludes: Public administration and defence; compulsory social security; Education; Human health and social work activities

Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Source: author’s calculation on LFS, Eurostat, and Eurofound. Ranking 2014. (1) Ranking is calculated at the national level on the total economy (which excludes activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies).—(2) Other LKIS include: H = Transporting and storage; L = Real estate activities; N = Administrative and support service activities; S = Other services activities; T = Activities of households as employers; undifferentiated goods—and services—producing activities of households for private use.—(3) Other KIS include: J = Information and communication; K = Financial and insurance activities; R = Arts, entertainment, and recreation.—(4) Professional, scientific, and technical activities.—(5) PA = Public administration and defence; compulsory social security.—(6) Health sector = Human health and social work activities

Fig. 5

Source: author’s calculation on LFS, Eurostat, and Eurofound. Ranking 2014, computed at the national level on the total economy (which excludes activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies). (1) Self-employed includes family workers

Fig. 6

Source: author’s calculation on LFS, Eurostat, and Eurofound. Ranking 2014, computed at the national level on the total economy (which excludes activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies)

Fig. 7

Source: author’s calculation on LFS, Eurostat, and Eurofound. Ranking 2014, computed at the national level on the total economy (which excludes activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies)

Fig. 8

Source: author’s calculations on microdata LFS, Eurostat, and Eurofound. Ranking 2014, computed at the national level on the total economy (which excludes activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies). (1) Group A includes: BE3 = Wallonia, Belgium; DE4 = Brandenburg, Germany; DE8 = Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany; DED = Saxony, Germany; DEE = Saxony-Anhalt, Germany; DEG = Thuringia, Germany; FRE = Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, France.—(2) Group B includes: ES1 = North-west Spain; ES4 = Central Spain; ES6 = South of Spain; EL4 = Nisia Aigaiou, Kriti Greece; EL5 = Voreia Ellada Greece; EL6 = Kentriki Ellada Greece, PT1 = Continental Portugal

Fig. 9

Source: author’s calculations on microdata LFS, Eurostat, and Eurofound. Ranking 2014, computed at the national level on the total economy (which excludes activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies). (1) Group A includes: BE3 = Wallonia, Belgium; DE4 = Brandenburg, Germany; DE8 = Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany; DED = Saxony, Germany; DEE = Saxony-Anhalt, Germany; DEG = Thuringia, Germany; FRE = Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, France.—(2) Group B includes: ES1 = North-west Spain; ES4 = Central Spain; ES6 = South of Spain; EL4 = Nisia Aigaiou, Kriti Greece; EL5 = Voreia Ellada Greece; EL6 = Kentriki Ellada Greece, PT1 = Continental Portugal

Fig. 10

Source: author’s calculations on microdata LFS, Eurostat, and Eurofound. Ranking 2014, computed at the national level on the total economy (which excludes activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies). Group A includes: BE3 = Wallonia, Belgium; DE4 = Brandenburg, Germany; DE8 = Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany; DED = Saxony, Germany; DEE = Saxony-Anhalt, Germany; DEG = Thuringia, Germany; FRE = Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, France.—(2) Group B includes: ES1 = North-west Spain; ES4 = Central Spain; ES6 = South of Spain; EL4 = Nisia Aigaiou, Kriti Greece; EL5 = Voreia Ellada Greece; EL6 = Kentriki Ellada Greece, PT1 = Continental Portugal.—(3) Other LKIS include: H = Transporting and storage; L = Real estate activities; N = Administrative and support service activities; S = Other services activities; T = Activities of households as employers; undifferentiated goods—and services—producing activities of households for own use.—(4) Other KIS include: J = Information and communication; K = Financial and insurance activities; R = Arts, entertainment and recreation.—(5) Professional, scientific and technical activities.—(6) PA = Public administration and defence; compulsory social security.—(7) Health sector = Human health and social work activities

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Notes

  1. Due to data availability, in the following analysis we will resort to ISCO at the 2-digit level and NACE at the section level (alphabetical letters).

  2. In the literature, wage-ranking has been widely used (e.g. Goos et al. 2009; Autor and Dorn 2013; Murphy and Oesch 2018; Basso 2019). However, jobs can be ranked according to other parameters such as their requested educational requirement (Olivieri 2012) or the tasks content (Autor et al. 2006; Basso 2019). All these indicators tend to be positively related to each other (De Bustillo et al. 2011). Wage data are generally more reliable statistics than other composite indicators, such as task indexes that may suffer from potential issues of measurement error (Basso 2019).

  3. The combination of both databases allows to overcome some shortcomings of Eurostat wage data (see Basso 2019). The availability of a specific country ranking is an advantage with respect to the previous studies on the topic (for instance the study by Goos et al. 2009 relied on UK wage data to rank the jobs in all EU15 countries, including Italy).

  4. See https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/it/observatories/emcc/european-jobs-monitor.

  5. We replicated the analysis by calculating terciles at a regional level. Results are qualitatively unchanged.

  6. Extraterritorial organisations and bodies have been excluded from analysis activities.

  7. For the purpose of the private sector analysis, public administration and defence, compulsory social security, education, human health and social work activities have been excluded.

  8. Analogous findings hold when considering 2011 instead of 2014: results discussed in the rest of the paper are not significantly different when considering 2011 as the starting point of the analysis.

  9. Similar results are obtained when considering the 2011–2019 period.

  10. Compared to Albanese et al., two areas of the UK and one area of France (FRM = Corsica) have been excluded.

  11. NUTS1 areas with a level of per capita GDP (in PPP terms) lower than 90 per cent of UE average EU-15 level in 2000 that had not converged towards EU average in the period between 2000 and 2013. In 2013, the level of per capita GDP (in PPP terms) remains below the average of EU level.

  12. Eurofound focuses on 130 regions in 9 countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Spain, Sweden e UK). Regions are classified in three groups according to the following criterions: regions with the presence of a capital city, regions with other big urban areas and regions with medium-large rural areas. The period of analysis is 2002–2017.

  13. The ranking used for each region is the one constructed at the national level (a specific one for each country considered).

  14. With the exception of Wallonia in Belgium, where the weight of intermediate quality occupations grew.

  15. To account for a different use of part-time jobs across the areas we replicated the exercise in full-time equivalent terms and find similar results (Fig. 13).

  16. Here, given the high number of analysed areas, it was unpractical to attribute to the South of Italy the rate of growth of each sector in each areas examined. Therefore, we graphically indicated (for each sector and occupation) the rate of growth in the considered period.

  17. In the graphs we also included Italian Central and Norther regions in order to have all the areas examined in the same figure. However, Centre-Northern regions should be compared to other EU areas with similar characteristics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Economic Research Unit, Bank of Italy, Torino Branch, Torino, Italy

    Silvia Anna Maria Camussi & Luciana Aimone Gigio

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  1. Silvia Anna Maria Camussi
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  2. Luciana Aimone Gigio
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Correspondence to Silvia Anna Maria Camussi or Luciana Aimone Gigio.

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We would like to thank Domenico Depalo and Roberto Torrini for their helpful comments. We thank the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) for the data provided. We are grateful to participants at the internal seminars at the Bank of Italy for their useful suggestions.

Appendix

Appendix

See Figs. 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15.

Fig. 11
figure 11

Source: author’s calculation on LFS, Eurostat, and Eurofound. Ranking 2014. (1) Ranking is calculated at the national level on the total economy (which excludes activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies).—(2) Other LKIS include: H = Transporting and storage; L = Real estate activities; N = Administrative and support service activities; S = Other services activities; T = Activities of households as employers; undifferentiated goods—and services—producing activities of households for own use.—(3) Other KIS include: J = Information and communication; K = Financial and insurance activities; R = Arts, entertainment and recreation.—(4) Professional, scientific and technical activities.—(5) PA = Public administration and defence; compulsory social security.—(6) Health sector = Human health and social work activities

Sectoral composition in the Italian macro-regions (1)(percentages; 2014).

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Fig. 12
figure 12

Source: author’s calculation on LFS, Eurostat, and Eurofound. Ranking 2014. (1) Ranking is calculated at the national level on the total economy (which excludes activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies).—(2) Other LKIS include: H = Transporting and storage; L = Real estate activities; N = Administrative and support service activities; S = Other services activities; T = Activities of households as employers; undifferentiated goods—and services—producing activities of households for own use.—(3) Other KIS include: J = Information and communication; K = Financial and insurance activities; R = Arts, entertainment and recreation.—(4) Professional, scientific and technical activities.—(5) PA = Public administration and defence; compulsory social security.—(6) Health sector = Human health and social work activities

Quality content of jobs per sector (1) (percentages; 2014).

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Fig. 13
figure 13

Source: author’s calculations on microdata LFS, Eurostat, and Eurofound. Ranking 2014, computed at the national level on the total economy (which excludes activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies). Part-time positions weighted for 0.5. (1) Group A includes: BE3 = Wallonia, Belgium; DE4 = Brandenburg, Germany; DE8 = Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany; DED = Saxony, Germany; DEE = Saxony-Anhalt, Germany; DEG = Thuringia, Germany; FRE = Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, France.—(2) Group B includes: ES1 = North-west Spain; ES4 = Central Spain; ES6 = South of Spain; EL4 = Nisia Aigaiou, Kriti Greece; EL5 = Voreia Ellada Greece; EL6 = Kentriki Ellada Greece, PT1 = Continental Portugal.—(3) Other LKIS include: H = Transporting and storage; L = Real estate activities; N = Administrative and support service activities; S = Other services activities; T = Activities of households as employers; undifferentiated goods—and services—producing activities of households for own use.—(4) Other KIS include: J = Information and communication; K = Financial and insurance activities; R = Arts, entertainment and recreation.—(5) Professional, scientific and technical activities.—(6) PA = Public administration and defence; compulsory social security.—(7) Health sector = Human health and social work activities

Changes in the share of total employments in full-time equivalent terms per tercile in the service sector (percentages; 2014–2019).

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Fig. 14
figure 14

Source: author’s calculations on microdata LFS, Eurostat, and Eurofound. Ranking 2014, computed at the national level on the total economy (which excludes activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies). (1) Group A includes: BE3 = Wallonia, Belgium; DE4 = Brandenburg, Germany; DE8 = Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany; DED = Saxony, Germany; DEE = Saxony-Anhalt, Germany; DEG = Thuringia, Germany; FRE = Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, France.—(2) Group B includes: ES1 = North-west Spain; ES4 = Central Spain; ES6 = South of Spain; EL4 = Nisia Aigaiou, Kriti Greece; EL5 = Voreia Ellada Greece; EL6 = Kentriki Ellada Greece, PT1 = Continental Portugal.—(3) Other LKIS include: H = Transporting and storage; L = Real estate activities; N = Administrative and support service activities; S = Other services activities; T = Activities of households as employers; undifferentiated goods—and services—producing activities of households for own use.—(4) Other KIS include: J = Information and communication; K = Financial and insurance activities; R = Arts, entertainment and recreation.—(5) Professional, scientific and technical activities.—(6) PA = Public administration and defence; compulsory social security.—(7) Health sector = Human health and social work activities

Sectoral composition of the EU regions (percentages; 2014).

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Fig. 15
figure 15figure 15

Comparison of the initial sectoral structure per geographical area and change in the related shares (1). (1) The graphs show for the main sectors—according to the classifications previously reported—the share of employed people in 2014 with the related change in the share in percentage points between 2014 and 2019. The extremes of the distribution were considered, e.g. those employed in the first tertile (corresponding to low qualifications) and in the third tertile (high qualifications). The countries shown are: MZ = South Italy; CN = Central-Northern Italy; BE3 = Wallonia, Belgium; DE4 = Brandenburg, Germany; DE8 = Mecklenburg-Pomerania, Germany; DED = Saxony, Germany; DEE = Saxony-Anhalt, Germany; DEG = Thuringia, Germany; FRE = North-Pas-de-Calais-Picard, France; ES1 = North-West Spain; ES4 = Central Spain; ES6 = South of Spain; EL4 = Aegean Islands, Crete Greece; EL5 = Northern Greece; EL6 = Central Greece; PT1 = Continental Portugal

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Camussi, S.A.M., Aimone Gigio, L. Changes in the Italian Employment Structure and Job Quality. Ital Econ J (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40797-023-00247-1

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