Demographic winter, Italy will lose 12 million active workers by 2060

The demographic winter will produce the strongest backlash in Italy, where the population of working age (between 20 and 64) will decrease by 34% by 2060, at a rate more than four times higher than the OECD average (8%): that is 12 million fewer people. Over the same period, the ratio of employed persons to total population in our country will decrease by 5.1 percentage points. If the annual growth of labour productivity remains at the level of the 2006-2019 period (0.31% in Italy), the GDP per capita is expected to decrease at an annual rate of 0.5%: -22% in 2060.

This is the scenario outlined by the OECD Employment Outlook presented to the Cnel, which identifies a series of policies to counter the effects of population ageing on per capita GDP growth. A first area of intervention consists in mobilising unused labour resources, bridging the gender gap in employment by at least two-thirds, valorising young people, activating healthy older workers and promoting regular immigration. "On each of these areas," explained the president of the Cnel, Renato Brunetta, "we have been working for over two years, with an organic programme, starting with the gender employment gap, which exceeds 17 percentage points, among the highest in the EU. The inactivity rate for women is 4 points higher than that of men. Only 20 per cent of enrolled girls choose Stem courses, compared to 40 per cent of boys. According to the OECD, reducing the gender gap, especially among young people, could increase the annual growth of national GDP per capita by more than 0.35 points by 2060, the highest contribution among EU countries'.

Policies are also needed to incentivise a longer stay in the labour market, even though in the last twenty years the employment rates of older workers in Italy have increased by 31.8 percentage points for those aged between 55 and 59 (compared to an increase of 13.7 percentage points in the OECD) and by 25.7 percentage points for those aged between 60 and 64 (20.1 percentage points in the OECD), thanks to the increase in the statutory retirement age.

"The employment of Italians aged between 60 and 64," pointed out Andrea Bassanini, senior economist at the OECD, "remains well below the OECD average. In this age group, the Italian employment rate was 47% in 2024, compared to 56% for the OECD average. About half of the OECD countries have rates above 60%'. The participation of young people is also decisive: 'Our untapped potential,' Brunetta explained, 'is among the highest of the OECD countries. In 2024 ISTAT found 1.34 million Neet with an incidence in the south of Italy more than double that of the north. Incentives are needed to retain and attract talent, policies to improve the real incomes of the youngest cohorts, which bring technical and scientific training closer to the skills required by companies'.

For the growth of GDP per capita, another lever is productivity: if it were to grow by half the rate observed in the OECD in the 1990s (around 1%), the annual increase in Italian GDP per capita could reach 1.34%, however, 'this target seems difficult for Italy, given its performance in recent decades'.