The Economic Situation

Lombardy: Record economic growth in the last 10 years

Lombardy outperformed Italy and the most productive European regions in economic growth, with significant increases in employment and wages.

12 June 2025

2' min read

Despite the economic slowdown of the past two years, over the past decade Lombardy has recorded higher economic growth than both Italy and the most productive European regions. This is confirmed by a report just published by the Banca d'Italia, according to which the regional GDP grew by 0.7% in 2024, in line with the national average.

The expansion of activity in the services and construction sectors was, however, accompanied by a decline in manufacturing output, although activity levels remain at the historically high levels achieved in the post-pandemic recovery phase.

Increasing employment

The total number of employed persons increased by 37,000 (+0.8% in 2024): the expansion occurred mainly in the service sector, especially in trade, accommodation and catering. By contrast, the number of employees decreased slightly in industry and, to a greater extent, in construction.

The increase in the number of employed persons involved only employees, while the number of the self-employed fell. The regional employment rate thus increased overall to 69.4 % - against 62.2 % in Italy - and the gender gap narrowed slightly (from 14.5 in 2023 to 14.0 percentage points).

Wage growth

Wage growth also strengthened. Contractual wages (which form the basis for actual wages) are said to have grown slightly faster than the 4% recorded for the country average.

The increase recorded in the region can be attributed to renewals in the credit and engineering sectors, which have a higher weight than the Italian average and which recorded the largest contractual adjustments. In spite of this, contractual wages in real terms were still lower than 2021 levels (about -9% nationally).

According to the survey, just under 60 per cent of industrial and service companies granted wage increases during the year, whereas in 2023 the share had been less than 50 per cent.

High uncertainty in global trade

On the other hand, industrial investments decreased by 6.9 per cent in 2024. According to Bankitalia's experts, companies' plans for 2025 foresee very limited capacity expansions, also due to the high uncertainty regarding international trade and domestic demand, while investments in support of the digital and energy transition continue.

According to the results of the survey, in 2024 every second Lombardy company invested in advanced digital technologies, in 13% of cases for amounts exceeding 40% of the total expenditure. In the same year, about half of the companies in the sector benefited from the incentives provided by the Transition 4.0 programme for the digitisation of companies.

Exports

Exports grew by 0.6 %, compared to a slight decrease in Italy. The highest increases were in the electronic equipment sector, while there were sharp declines in the fashion sector.

The report shows that the trend in foreign trade was mainly affected by the weak economy in France and Germany, the region's main markets, to which export flows declined especially in the metallurgy, mechanical engineering and, for Germany, transport equipment sectors. Exports to the United States, a market where sales in the pharmaceutical, mechanical engineering and fashion sectors fell significantly, also declined.