Youth enterprises are only 7.7% of the total

In the light of the complex economic and geopolitical framework that has characterised - albeit indirectly - our country in recent years, the entrepreneurial system in the North-East (which includes Trentino-Alto Adige, Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia) shows a certain degree of resilience, but also shows some signs of fragility.

According to updates from the Business Register, the northeastern part of the Peninsula takes second place nationally in terms of total birth rate (calculated as the ratio between companies registered in 2024 and those registered as at 31 December 2023) at 5.4%; a figure higher than the 4.9% of the South and the 5.3% of the Northwest (excluding Lombardy, 6.2%). However, this apparent dynamism is partly dampened by the high mortality rates (companies closed in 2024 out of companies registered as at 31 December 2023) that characterise the macro-area (5.2% compared to the national average of 4.8%): the result is a modest growth rate (about 0.3%), lower than the country average (0.6%) and far from the levels reached by the leader, Lombardy (1.1%).

Even going into the details of joint stock companies - which is, of all legal forms, the one with the highest degree of structuring - the results do not improve: against a national average growth rate of 3.2 per cent, the North-East is stuck at a modest 2.5 per cent, the lowest percentage among all the divisions.

Among the territories that make up the area, only Trentino-Alto Adige manages to place itself in the first half of the regional ranking by growth rate. In particular, with a value of 0.6%, the region ranks fifth out of twenty; it is followed by Veneto (eleventh in Italy, +0.21%) and Friuli-Venezia Giulia (thirteenth, +0.19%). It should be noted that, out of a total of thirteen provinces, only three are in the top twenty-five: this is the case of Trieste (1.0%, thirteenth), Bolzano/Bozen (0.9%, eighteenth) and Padua (0.8%, twenty-fourth).

If we look at the socio-anagraphic characteristics of entrepreneurs, the critical aspects of the breakdown emerge clearly: the percentage of young businesses is just 7.7%, below the average (8.3%) and, above all, below the results achieved by other areas (the South above all, 9.5%). The decrease in the number of young entrepreneurs is a complex phenomenon that tends to worsen over time and affects, with varying intensity, the entire Peninsula. Over the last fourteen years, the ratio of young businesses to residents in the breakdown has steadily decreased, from 5.1 in 2011 to 4.2 in 2024. The reason for this is not only the declining population and the generalised ageing of the population, but also the more limited possibilities of young people to start and sustain a business, especially in today's global context.