Industry

Italia has lost 434,000 craftspeople in ten years

By 2025, there were just under 1.3 million workers left, 25.1 per cent fewer than in 2015. The Marche and Umbria regions led the decline

by Gianluca Brazzioli

15 August 2026

Aggiungi Il Sole 24 Ore
ai preferiti su Google

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Finding a plumber, a locksmith or an electrician has become more difficult in many parts of Italia. There are now almost 434,000 fewer tradespeople in the country than there were ten years ago: there were 1.7 million in 2015, but by 2025 this figure had fallen to almost 1.3 million. This represents a fall of 25.1 per cent, according to the Research Department of the CGIA, the Association of Skilled Tradespeople and Small Businesses in Mestre.

The number of businesses is also falling. After peaking in 2008, when there were almost 1.5 million, the number of active craft businesses fell to 1.22 million in 2025.

The worst figures in the Marche and Umbria regions

Over the past ten years, no region has managed to avoid a decline. The sharpest fall has been recorded in the Marche, where the number of craftspeople has fallen by 31.3 per cent. This is followed by Umbria with 29.3 per cent, Emilia-Romagna with 28.7 per cent and Piedmont with 28.4 per cent. In the South, the decline is more moderate, at 20.2 per cent.

The most recent year for which figures are available also confirms this trend: between 2024 and 2025, the province with the largest percentage decrease was Pesaro-Urbino, at 8.3 per cent, followed by Mantua at 7.9 per cent and Bologna at 7.5 per cent.

The CGIA points out that part of the decline is due to mergers and acquisitions following the crises of 2008–2009, 2012–2013 and 2020–2021. Fewer businesses in some sectors have resulted in larger companies on average and higher productivity. This has been particularly evident in freight transport, the metalworking and engineering sector, plant installation and the fashion industry.

The problem of generational renewal

The most challenging issue concerns the future. The workforce of skilled tradespeople is ageing, whilst fewer young people are choosing these trades, and the decline in the population is making it even more difficult to recruit new staff. According to the CGIA, within a decade, finding a plumber, a blacksmith, an electrician or a joiner for a repair job could become ‘an extremely difficult task’.

According to the CGIA, there is a cultural problem: ‘For fifty years, manual labour has suffered from a cultural devaluation that continues to take its toll’. To address this, it recommends restoring “a central role to vocational colleges, which, not too many decades ago, were a key driver of national economic development”, and which – the association claims – have “slipped to the status of second-tier schools, if not third-tier ones”.

The challenges facing small shops and changes in the sector

The crisis is also said to be affecting the economic model that has sustained local shops and small businesses for decades. The depopulation of small towns is contributing to a further decline in demand, which is already under pressure from large retail chains and online shopping. Small businesses are also particularly vulnerable to even short-term drops in sales, which can undermine their already fragile financial position.

Now, artificial intelligence is set to transform the sector. According to the association, this could widen the gap between those who manage to use it and those who will continue to work ‘solely with their hands’. A carpenter can use it to quickly draw up a design, a bricklayer to prepare a quote, and a potter to manage communications. In these cases, the CGIA notes, the technology ‘doesn’t take time away: it gives it back’.

Craftspeople would therefore benefit if they were willing to incorporate artificial intelligence into the more repetitive tasks of their trade, thereby becoming more efficient. For these jobs, the competition over the next decade may not be a machine, but rather the lack of anyone willing to learn them.

Brand connect

I prossimi eventi

Tutti gli eventi

Notizie e approfondimenti sugli avvenimenti politici, economici e finanziari.

Economy