Smartworking brings per capita savings of up to 1,000 euros
The map of Italia: Lombardy, driven by Milan, is the 'piggy bank' of the peninsula
Key points
Italians' propensity to save is growing; in five years, the share of disposable income set aside by households rose from 7.55% in 2019 to 8.28% in 2024. But in the South the incidence stopped at 6.08% in 2024 against 5.67% in 2019, while in the North it reached 9.73% (against 8.5% in 2019) with peaks of 10.46% in the North West (9.72% in 2019).
Biella is confirmed as the 'capital' of savings in 2024 (14.37%), followed on the podium by Asti (12.79%) and Vercelli (12.53%). While the greatest difficulties are found in Crotone, which closes the ranking (4.30%), followed by Siracusa (4.37%) and Ragusa (4.51%).
Overall, the greater prevalence of smartworking increases the ability to save: workers set aside 9.45% of their income in 2024 in territories where the share of 'remote' work was higher than the national average, compared to 7.67% set aside by workers where the use of this tool was lower.
This is what emerges from an analysis carried out by Unioncamere and its Centro Studi Guglielmo Tagliacarne, which quantifies the savings of consumer households and their relative propensity to save at provincial level in 2024.
Savings characterise the smaller province
"Savings are territorially more concentrated than household income. In fact, the top fifteen provinces in terms of total amount of savings absorb about 50% of this aggregate, i.e. 4.4 percentage points more than for disposable income. This was pointed out by Gaetano Fausto Esposito, director general of the Tagliacarne Study Centre, according to whom "saving is still a phenomenon that characterises the smaller provinces: the average demographic size of the top ten provinces with the greatest propensity to save is 20% smaller than those of the bottom ten. Over the last five years,' Esposito added, 'the differential in the propensity to save between the south and the rest of the country has increased, despite a recent improvement in the south's savings capacity. It is not only the lower level of per capita income in the South that is weighing on this, but also the more sustained increase in prices in the area, which, other things being equal, has led to an increase in the value of spending and, consequently, a reduction in the possibility of setting aside resources'.
