Istat, fewer permanent workers in 2023/24: increase in self-employed workers

Rome, 15 October (LaPresse) – In 2023-2024, among new employees, the proportion of permanent employees will continue to decline, falling to 28.3% from 28.7% in 2022-2023, and the proportion of fixed-term employees and collaborators will also decrease (-1.5 points) in favour of self-employed workers (up 1.9 points). This was announced by Istat. Among younger people, however, the proportion of permanent employees is increasing (+0.6 for 15-34 year olds and +0.9 for 35-49 year olds), partially recovering from the sharp decline observed in the previous period, while the proportion of fixed-term employees and collaborators is decreasing, especially among 35-49 year olds (-0.2 and -3.6 points respectively). Among the latter, there is a particularly marked increase in self-employed workers, who are returning to 2021-2022 levels. The flow data show a growing difficulty for fixed-term employees to stabilise their employment status after one year: only 18.0% of fixed-term employees in 2023 have a permanent contract in 2024; the figure was almost 5 percentage points higher (22.7%) in 2022-2023. This reduction affected all age groups, particularly the middle age group, where the figure fell from 24.1% to 18.4%. Between 2023 and 2024, more than half of those entering employment will do so on a fixed-term contract: 52.0% will enter as fixed-term employees and 6.9% as collaborators (in 2022-2023, the figures were 54.7% and 5.7% respectively); the incidence is close to 70% among the youngest (up from 2021-2022).