According to a forecast from May 2025, the unemployment rate in Italy could reach 5.9 percent by the end of the year, 3.5 percentage points less than in 2021, when the COVID-19 outbreak had a disastrous impact on the labor market. The rate is then expected to remain stable in 2026. Weak employment situation Unemployment in Italy started increasing after the 2008 financial crisis and peaked at 12.7 percent in 2014. It mostly affected the young population. Similarly, the youth unemployment rate also increased significantly during the same period, reaching over 40 percent in 2014. Even if the figures decreased in the following years, in 2022 the rates were still particularly high in the southern regions. Indeed, the youth unemployment rate in the regions of Sicily and Campania stood at around 43 percent. COVID-19 impact on the economy The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak had a serious impact on Italy’s economy. In June 2020, most Italian respondents declared that the coronavirus pandemic had impacted or would impact their personal incomes in the future. In addition, the fear of losing the job due to the pandemic has been increasing in the country, with more than half of respondents worrying about this in July 2020.

In Italy, the unemployment rate in the southern regions has been significantly higher than in the northern ones from 2020 to 2024. In 2021, the peak was reached in the north-west, center and south, due to the COVID-19 crisis. In 2024, the unemployment rate in the south was around ****** percent, two percentage points lower than in 2023. However, it was ***** times higher compared to the north-east, where *** percent of the people in working age were without a job.

In 2022, 2.56 million people benefitted from unemployment insurance in Italy. In 2020 and 2021, the government enacted a layoff ban for securing employees against the labor crisis brought in by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this prohibition was lifted in 2022, and the number of unemployment insurance recipients significantly increased. Two million employees and 530,000 agricultural workers benefitted from the unemployment allowance. The beneficiaries of the allowance for doctoral and postdoctoral researchers were only 21,000.

Between April and June 2020, around *** thousand people in Italy found employment. Compared to the same period of 2019, the number of people who found a job decreased by ** percent. The job market in Italy has been considerably impacted by the COVID-19 emergency. The number of unemployed people is estimated to have grown in 2020 and to experience a further increase during 2021. According to a recent forecast, the unemployment rate in Italy might increase to **** percent in 2021.

In July 2025, industrial production in Italy overall increased by 0.9 percent compared to July 2024. Electricity and gas supply recorded a decline of more than nine percent. On the contrary, coke and petroleum products registered the highest growth rate. Impact on consumption and production The spring of 2020 recorded a very sharp decrease in industrial production and consumption. In terms of industrial production, some of the most impacted sectors by the coronavirus were the manufacture of textiles, apparel, leather, and accessories, as well as the manufacture of transport equipment. Similarly, consumption volume increased in March 2021 compared to one year ago. During the pandemic, the sectors of air transportation and leisure activities saw some of the largest drops in consumption. Recovery after COVID-19 Italy's economy has been strongly hit by the coronavirus pandemic, with Italy's GDP dropping consistently in 2020. Additionally, Italian exports are estimated to have decreased by over 15 percent. However, 2021 seems to be a year of recovery. The GDP is estimated to grow from three to four percent. The exports and imports are going to increase as well. Nevertheless, the next two years might experience an increase in unemployment rate, particularly during 2021.

In January 2021, approximately **** million jobs in Europe's three largest economies were being supported by temporary employment schemes, with the UK's job retention scheme supporting approximately **** million jobs, France's Chômage partiel scheme *** million, while *** million workers were on Germany's Kurzarbeit system. Although some of these partial employment mechanisms were already in place before the COVID-19 pandemic, their usage accelerated considerably after the first Coronavirus lockdowns in Spring 2020. How much will this cost European governments? Early on in the pandemic, European governments moved swiftly to limit the damage that the Coronavirus pandemic would cause to the labor market. The spectre of mass unemployment, which would put a huge strain on European benefit systems anyway, was enough to encourage significant government spending and intervention. To this end, the European Union made 100 billion Euros of loans available through it's unemployment support fund (SURE). As of March 2021, Italy had received ***** billion Euros in loans from the SURE mechanism, and is set to be loaned **** billion Euros overall. Spain and Poland will receive the second and third highest amount from the plan, at **** billion, and ***** billion Euros respectively. What about the UK? The United Kingdom is not involved in the European Union's SURE scheme, but has also paid substantial amounts of money to keep unemployment at bay. As of January 31, 2021, there had been more than **** million jobs furloughed on the UK's job retention scheme. By this date, the expenditure of this measure had reached **** billion British pounds, with this figure expected to increase further, following the extension of the scheme to September 2021.

The youth unemployment rate of South Africa was over ** percent in 2024, the highest of any G20 country. Italy followed with a youth unemployment rate of **** percent. In contrast, Japan's youth unemployment rate was the lowest at only 3*** percent. Economic crisis in Argentina At ***** percent, youth unemployment in Argentina falls third out of the G20 nations. The Argentinian economy was hit by a recession beginning in 2022, with an average inflation rate of nearly ** percent that year, jumping to over *** percent in 2023. Such staggering inflation has hit Argentinian consumers hard, with the average consumer price index going from nearly *** in 2021 to ***** in 2022, before increasing to nearly ***** in 2023. While youth unemployment has fallen in Argentina since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, factors such as skyrocketing inflation make getting by difficult for many. Inequality in South Africa With a youth unemployment rate of just over 6* percent, South Africa stands out from the rest of the G20 nations. Thirty years after the end of Apartheid, South Africa is considered one the most unequal country in the world. Using the Gini Index, which measures income inequality with zero representing totally equal distribution and one representing unequal distribution, South Africa has a score of ****, higher than any other nation. Poverty and inequality are a major concern for South Africans, with over ** percent of survey respondents expressing worry over the issue in January 2024, a slight decrease from a recent peak of ** percent in August 2023.