Employment grows with the female component

Lombardy has a higher employment rate than the national average (69.2% vs. 61.9%), according to the ISTAT survey on the labour force for the first half of 2024. However, if we consider the regions that make up Northern Italy, the figure is the lowest recorded in the first half of the year, with the exception of Liguria. As far as female employment is concerned, on the other hand, during the period considered, Lombardy is in line with the values obtained by the other northern regions, with an employment rate higher than the Italian average (62.1% against 53.1%). In terms of the gender gap, which is present in all the regions of the Peninsula, Lombardy achieves a better result than the national average (14 percentage points difference between male and female employment, 17.6 national average), but the most virtuous regions on this front are Valle d'Aosta, Trentino-Alto Adige, Friuli Venezia-Giulia and Piedmont.

Looking at the annual changes, however, a comparison of the figures for the second quarter of 2023 with those for 2024 shows how the number of employed persons aged 15-64 grew over time, but moderately (+1.1%), especially with reference to the other macro-divisions that make up Italy (excluding the North-East, where there was a contraction of -0.2%). Overall, it is interesting to note that the increase in the number of employed persons in the first half of the year is mainly due to the increase in female employment, which grew by 1.3% in 2024 compared to 2023, compared to a 1% increase in male employment.

In terms of expected entries in the first ten months of 2024, corresponding to the new employment contracts activated, Lombardy ranks third among Italian regions, based on the data provided by the Excelsior Information System. There are, in fact, 14.8 entries expected in the region for every 100 workers aged 15 - 64 (12.6 national average), lower only than the data recorded in Valle d'Aosta and Trentino-Alto Adige. Of these, almost a third are expected in industrial companies, which absorb 30.2% of total entries (compared to a national average of 28.4%), while a quarter concern entries of professional figures corresponding to managerial, specialist and technical workers, recording in this case the highest value in the Peninsula (25.2% compared to the average 18.9%). Going down to the territorial level, the provinces with the highest number of expected entries, in relation to the population, are Milan (20.9%), Brescia (14.4%) and Bergamo (13.0%), while with reference to the percentage incidence of entries of executives, specialists and technicians there are, in addition to Milan (32.0%), Monza and Brianza (25.0%) and Varese (23.2%).

Finally, the provinces with the highest share of expected entries in the industrial sector are Lecco (45.0%), Mantua (42.3%) and Bergamo (40.1%), in line with the production specialisation of the various territories in the Lombardy region.