Confcommercio, illegality caused trade companies to lose 40 billion

In 2024, illegality cost businesses in the trade and public sector EUR 39.2 billion and put 276,000 regular jobs at risk, up slightly from the previous year. It is thought that commercial unlawfulness cost 10.3 billion, that in catering 7.4 billion and counterfeiting 5.1 billion. In general, 30% of companies in the tertiary market perceive a worsening of security levels in 2024.

These are the numbers lined up by the Confcommercio survey released on the occasion of the national 'Legality, we like it!' day, now in its 12th edition.

"Crime is also an unreasonable cost for our economy and a ballast to its growth potential," commented Confcommercio president Carlo Sangalli. "60.1 per cent of our businesses," he added, "consider themselves penalised by squatting and counterfeiting. Awareness is the first step towards change, in terms of legality and safety. We also consider it of great importance to support businesses in the increased investments they are making to prevent risks, equipping themselves, for example, with video surveillance systems".

Sangalli explained that '82.9 per cent of the service sector companies we interviewed have invested in recent years in security measures that give good results, and are also a help to the forces of law and order, because let us not forget that one of the key words of this day - and in general of our commitment to legality - is precisely 'collaboration' with the institutions and forces of law and order. Education, knowledge, and sharing on these issues in fact raise awareness, break solitudes, and animate change. The culture of legality is the soil on which the sense of community germinates: without respect for shared rules, no freedom is possible, no security is real'.

Nearly one in three (31.3%) entrepreneurs fear that their company may be exposed to the risk of criminal phenomena such as theft, robbery, vandalism and break-ins, assault, etc. Theft is the crime that most concerns entrepreneurs in terms of personal safety, the safety of their employees and their company (33.2%).