2' min read
2' min read
"There is an entire district in extreme distress, with a drop in orders and significant recourse to the redundancy fund, in the area between Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Padua, which involves important clusters along the entire piedmont area of Treviso". The alarm comes from the provincial president of Casartigiani Treviso, Piergiovanni Maschietto, who identifies the German recession as the main cause. "The situation also risks suffocating our companies: the small ones as well as the more structured and technologically advanced ones. The slowdown in Germany's production system could deliver the coup de grace to the entire manufacturing sector in the Northeast, which has already been tried by the uncertainties of recent years,' he adds. According to the latest Unioncamere Barometer, 2024 so far reveals numerous negative signs: in the regional sphere, the number of active companies continues to fall (-1.5% year-on-year in the second quarter), bankruptcies and composition agreements are on the rise, as are the number of hours of redundancy payments (+41% in the second quarter), and exports are falling. Germany, where growth estimates have long since fallen to zero, is a special case in point. "The difficulties in which the locomotive of Europe finds itself have already begun to have repercussions on our activities in the North-East, many of which work for the German industrial system," sums up Maschietto. "With orders collapsing, there are companies forced to limit production, with recourse to the redundancy fund or with collective agreements that envisage a reduction in working days: there are now factories where people work two days a week. This scenario is counterpointed by another paradox: it concerns entrepreneurs who, due to a shortage of qualified personnel and labour, are forced to abandon orders. The situation is far from rosy. It is time to find shared solutions, to relaunch the system, in Veneto, as in Rome and Brussels: we ask our politicians for a shot in the arm that will put in place adequate relaunch policies,' he concludes.
