Construction boom in Liguria, companies, jobs and wages grow

Over the past few years, companies, employment and wages in the construction industry in Liguria have grown to record levels: this is shown by the data collected by the territorial building funds, processed by the Ligurian Regional College of Building Contractors. But after the end of the super-bonus and with the approaching end of the works financed with the Pnrr, the sector risks going back into crisis. A situation that Ance Liguria intends to avoid at all costs.

"As a sector,' says Enio Marino, president of the territorial association, 'we suffered a lot from 2008 to 2018. There were few jobs and for a long time there was a lack of alternation between public and private construction sites. In 2019 there were just over 17,000 construction workers. Then came the superbonus, which lit a flash fire from 2020 onwards. Many craftsmen, who were employees of structured companies, became entrepreneurs and the market was drugged: not even scaffolding could be found, which had to be bought abroad. Then, when the incentives ended (in 2024, ndr) came the Pnrr, which was another injection of resources for the building industry, even if it forced them to run".

In short, continued the president of Ance Liguria, "today, compared to the pre-concession period, the total number of construction workers in Liguria has risen by more than 10,000 (to 28,013 in 2025, ndr), in just seven years almost 800 companies have registered with the Building Funds, and the total wage bill has reached almost 320 million euros, while in 2019 it was just over 183 million. Therefore, the employment growth that the building industry has experienced in recent years in Liguria, and in much of the rest of Italia, is unparalleled in the recent history of the building construction sector'.

Looking at the data made available by Ance, it can be seen that the annual escalation starts from 17,395 workers in 2019 and reaches 28,013 in 2025 (+37.9%), with a jump of almost 4,000 between 2021 and 2022. In a similar direction, the number of companies has also risen in the same period from 3,622 to 4,400 (+17.68%), albeit with some slight decreases in 2020 (3,488) and in 2025 (4,400, compared to 4,555 in 2024). Also unparalleled is the jump of over 135 million euros in the total wage bill: +42.4% in seven years.

Nevertheless, Marino concludes, 'we are builders, we are not used to looking at facts with naive idealism, but with realistic optimism. Today we have the need, the duty, and we feel the responsibility to consolidate this employment trend, banishing the bogeyman of the long crisis that has accompanied us to the threshold of 2020. It is clear, in fact, that it is unthinkable that we can continue to grow at these levels, given also the geopolitical situation we are experiencing at world level. Now is the time to dialogue, constructively, with politics, so that what has been achieved so far is consolidated, moving from exceptional measures to structural interventions that give continuity to the entire construction sector.