Between 2021 and 2024 employment booms in the South but 175,000 young people emigrate. More than 13,000 jobs at risk with US tariffs

Between 2021 and 2024, the added value of industry in the strictest sense (manufacturing, mining, utilities) recorded an overall drop of -1.9% at a national level, but with a clear territorial divide in favour of the South: +5.7% compared to -2.8% in the Centre-North, which recorded peaks of -5.6% in the North-West and -2.9% in the North-East, compared to +3.8% in the Centre. The particularly significant positive discontinuity with respect to previous economic cycles is that the South's result was determined by the expansion of manufacturing: +13.6% (-2.4% the North-West, -2.1% the North-East, +4.4% the Centre).

Overall, southern manufacturing benefited from two levers. The construction boom created new demand for the manufacturing component of the construction industry, as shown by the growth figure for metal and metal products (+7.9%). Added to this was the sustained growth of other sectors with mature specialisation in Southern Italy, in particular agro-food (+13.1%), the main area of specialisation in Southern Italy (with Campania, Apulia and Sicily standing out for a production fabric with a high propensity to export).

In the Mezzogiorno, the universe of local units belonging to multinational companies and large local units (≥ 250 employees) of domestic groups and sole proprietorships generates an added value of around EUR 46 billion and employs just under 600,000 people. With a significant presence, albeit concentrated in a few major industrial clusters, the group of large southern companies, although a minority on a national scale, has a specific characterisation. In the sectors with the highest technological intensity (pharmaceuticals, electronics, chemicals, mechanics, automotive, aerospace), the employment incidence of large plants reaches 50%, significantly exceeding the 30% share recorded for the other divisions. These are realities that concentrate over 60% of the overall added value generated by the industrial sector in the South. This result, observes Svimez, suggests that "in technologically advanced sectors, enterprise size represents a good approximation of the endowment of technological and financial skills necessary - if not indispensable - to compete in complex and highly internationalised markets".

From 2021 to 2025, real Italian wages have lost purchasing power, with a stronger fall in the South: -10.2% versus -8.2% in the Centre-North. Higher inflation and more stagnant nominal wages accentuate the gap. There are 2.4 million working poor in Italy, 1.2 million of whom are in the South. And between 2023 and 2024 their number increased: +120 thousand in Italy, +60 thousand in the South. Therefore, the report points out, it is not enough to have a job to get out of poverty: low wages, temporary contracts, involuntary part-time work and families with few earners increase vulnerability, calling for 'in-work poverty to be put back on the political agenda'. In 2024, poor households grew in the Mezzogiorno from 10.2% to 10.5%.

Staying with the labour market, the report highlights that in the South women's participation in the labour market remains among the lowest in Europe, despite positive signs between 2021 and 2024. Women study more, graduate earlier and with higher grades but then work less and with lower wages: 31% of 25-34-year-old women with tertiary qualifications compared to 21% men.

A section of the report focuses on the impact of the US tariffs. Italy's exposure, it is recalled, is heterogeneous at territorial and sectoral level. Lombardy (13.7 billion), Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany (both around 10 billion) account for almost 55% of national exports to the US in 2024. As far as Southern Italy is concerned, Campania ranks first in terms of exports to the US economy (1.9 billion), followed by Abruzzo (1.6 billion), Sicily (1 billion) and Apulia (930 million). "Although southern exports to the USA therefore make up only 10% of the national total," the Svimez 205 report clarifies, "it should be emphasised that in recent years the US market has driven foreign demand and constituted an important lever of growth for the South. From a sectorial point of view, the sectors of southern industry most closely linked to the US market are Agro-industry (1.7 billion, more than a quarter of Macro Area exports), Pharmaceuticals (1 billion) and Petrochemicals (900 million)".

In this context, Italy could suffer a drop of 6.3 billion, which is particularly heavy in relative terms (-0.3%). Almost 90% of this fall in added value is concentrated in the Centre-North: Lombardy is the worst hit region in absolute and relative terms, with a reduction of over EUR 2 billion (-0.5%) and almost 25 thousand jobs at risk. The other export-led regional economies are also heavily damaged: Veneto (-725 million) and Emilia-Romagna (-685 million) suffer significant losses in absolute terms. As far as Southern Italy is concerned, the most significant reductions in added value in absolute terms are recorded in Campania (-€240 million), Apulia (-€122 million) and Sicily (-€117 million), while significant relative contractions also materialise in Molise (-0.4%) and Basilicata (-0.2%). A reduction of 0.2% is also expected for Abruzzo, an economy characterised by exports to the US as a percentage of GDP (4%) that is higher than the national average (2.9%).