This graph shows the result of a survey about the perception of international financial crisis’ solution in Italy in 2018. According to data, the largest group of respondents (** percent) affirmed that the end of the economic crisis was still far, and it probably needed other **** to ten years to come to a solution, whereas ** percent thought that the crisis might end in ***** or four years.

The statistic shows the results of a survey concerning Italians' opinion on the impact of migrants on the domestic economy in 2018. According to data, about *** in *** respondents believed that migrants constituted mainly a risk for Italy's economy. By contrast, ** percent of respondents thought that migrants constituted an economic resource rather than a risk.

Municipal and provincial Italian electoral data 2018, together with economic and immigration data at the same level. Shapefiles dataset for maps and spatial regression models Scholars agree that two major issues oriented voting behaviours during the Italian general election of 2018. The first was the state of the economy, which had not yet recovered from the lowest points reached during the Great Recession, but had nevertheless exhibited some marginal improvement. The second issue originated from another crisis, the refugee and asylum emergency, which contributed to increasing the presence of foreigners in Italy and the salience of the migration issue. The article investigates the impact of these two types of problem on the 2018 election results by using aggregated objective data at the municipal level. It finds confirmation of the two issues’ impact on retrospective punishment of the incumbent Democratic Party also when using spatial regression models distinguishing the direct influence and the spill-over effects of the poor state of the economy and an increase in the size of the foreign population.

Italy recorded a Government Debt to GDP of 135.30 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product in 2024. This dataset provides - Italy Government Debt To GDP - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

As of December 2019, most Italians did not know what the European Stability Mechanism was. Additionally, ** percent had general knowledge about this European organization, while only **** percent declared to exactly know what the ESM was.

The ESM is an international European organization located in Luxembourg providing financial funding for the monetary stability of the Eurozone. Its proposed reform was an object of discussion in Italian politics in the last months. The parties Lega and Fratelli d'Italia put the topic into discussion, accusing the Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of lack of transparency about the proposed reform. However, the terms of the reform were already known in December 2018.

As of December 2019, **** percent of Italian respondents believed that the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) was damaging for Italy and thus it had to be abolished.

The ESM is an international European organization located in Luxembourg providing financial funding for the monetary stability of the Eurozone. Its proposed reform was an object of discussion in Italian politics in the last months. The parties Lega and Fratelli d'Italia put the topic into discussion, accusing the Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of lack of transparency about the proposed reform. However, the terms of the reform were already known in December 2018.

A further survey shows that most Italians did not know what the European Stability Mechanism was. Only **** percent of respondents declared to know exactly what the ESM meant.

The snapshot provided by Prometeia about the economic situation throughout different Italian areas highlights that disparities are a serious issue in the country. Comparing the indexed GDP per capita in 2005, 2015, and 2025 it comes out not only that in the ***** of Italy the GDP per capita has always been twofold likened to the *****, but also that the gap is expected to further increase in 2025. In like manner, in 2018, the ******** regions ****************************** were the ones with the lowest GDP per capita, whereas at the top five of the ranking only ******** Italian regions could be found. Unemployment rates by macro-region The situation was not much different pertaining to unemployment. In 2020, the unemployment rate in the North oscillated between *** and *** percent, while in the South the rate reached **** percent. Overall, the estimated figures for 2021 and 2022 were not optimistic, given that the unemployment rate was expected to increase throughout Italy. However, the growth was forecasted to be more remarkable in the South than in the rest of the country. Italian economy  Undoubtedly, the economic crisis that occurred in Italy in 2008 together with its long-term repercussions contributed to accentuate already existing regional gaps. Currently, Italy is one of Europe’s largest economies. However, in 2018, it also was among the EU countries with the lowest GDP growth. Furthermore, in 2019, Italy was the sixth state with the highest public debt in relation to the gross domestic product worldwide.

As of the first semester of 2017, the total assets of the Italian banking system amounted to 3.92 trillion euros. According to the data provided by the Bank of Italy, over the period considered the assets of the banking sector fluctuated between 3.63 trillion euros in 2008 and a peak of 4.2 trillion euros in 2012. When compared to other European countries, the Italian banking system ranked fourth in terms of total assets in 2018 behind the UK, which topped the ranking with over 14.1 trillion U.S. dollars, France and Germany.

Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit dominate the market in Italy

In 2020, most of the assets of the Italian banking sector (approximately 1.9 trillion euros) were held by the two leading banking institutions in the country: UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo. The two banking groups have dominated the Italian market for the last decade. UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo boasted respectively 2.5 and 3.1 thousand branches around the country in 2021 and employed over 90 thousand individuals each in 2018. Moreover, both banking groups are present in several other European markets as well as outside Europe.

Recovering but still vulnerable

Since the financial crisis, the Italian banking sector has been recovering due to government actions undertaken to deal with the most problematic banks. However, Italian banks remain weak. The reduction of non-performing loans (NPLs) has progressed. The stock of gross NPLs of Italian banks declined, reaching a value of approximately 324 billion euros in the first semester of 2017. Bad loans (debt with the worst recovery prospects) also decreased while the bad debt coverage ratio improved.

Individual or group semi-structured interviews with around 100 interview partners in Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom including managers, workers, employers’ and workers’ representatives, government officials, policy-makers and school teachers. This study addresses the question how automotive employers in different national institutional contexts address the same strategic challenges in terms of skill development and use. The project compares companies’ HR strategies of companies in Germany, Italy and UK. The countries have been chosen because they differ in their institutions of industrial relations and vocational training. While providing a broad overview of companies’ strategies in the areas of training and work design, the fieldwork focused on direct production units including assembly line, maintenance and quality control. Global competition, volatile demand, fast-pace innovation and shifting production to cheap locations are challenging the future of the automotive industry in Europe. As the automotive industry has traditionally been a driver of the European economy and a provider of ‘good jobs’, this is a major concern to national governments and European institutions, which have prioritised sustainable economic growth and employment creation since the recent crisis. In response to these challenges, companies have restructured their workforce, diversifying wages and working conditions along the value chain; they have also invested in technological innovation and transformed the work organisation on the shop floor, where employees are increasingly required to take responsibility for the product quality and to actively engage in problem solving and plant efficiency improvements. Hence, a skilled workforce has become increasingly crucial for automotive employers, from the assembly line to the Research and Development departments. As such, this project focuses on the two most important Human Resources’ areas for companies in promoting and helping employees to acquire and use the right skills at work: Training and Work Organisation and Design. In these two HR areas, however, public policies and institutions of Industrial Relations and Vocational and Educational Training (VET) crucially affect the ability of companies to pursue and implement their strategic goals. Therefore, this study addresses the question how automotive employers in different national institutional contexts address the same strategic challenges in terms of skill development and use.

The project compares companies’ HR strategies of companies in Germany, Italy and UK. The countries have been chosen because they differ in their institutions of industrial relations and vocational training. While providing a broad overview of companies’ strategies in the areas of training and work design, the fieldwork focused on direct production units including assembly line, maintenance and quality control. Findings are based on desk research about the institutional trajectories of the national VET and Industrial Relations systems; analysis of companies’ reports and internal policy materials, collective agreements, school brochures, minutes of conferences and notes from site visits and from participant observation in employers’, unions’ and training providers’ meetings/events and school open days; around 100 interviews with HR managers, workers’ representatives at workplace, training providers, employers’ chambers and employers’ associations, sectoral union representatives and researchers.
This research contributes to academic debates on how companies respond to similar production and knowledge requirements in different institutional contexts, with varied outcomes for the workforce. Findings will have implications for managers and policy makers because they identify the conditions under which companies are able to develop the skills they need; in addition, comparative evidence will provide unions and practitioners in the field of labour market and social policy with valuable information about the institutions and regulations associated with better workers' outcomes in terms of skill development and job design.

Mondadori Libri S.P.A. was the company generating the highest return on equity between 2016 and 2018 in the book publishing sector in Italy, according to the data provided by Prometeia. The return on equity is obtained by dividing the net income of a company by the shareholders’ equity. The ROE measures how successfully a company manages its equity. Together with the return on investment (ROI), it is the most important financial indicator to assess a business profitability.

Mondadori book publishing

The book publishing house Mondadori Libri S.P.A. belongs to the bigger Gruppo Mondadori, operating in the media publishing sector. Since 2017, the book publishing business of the group experienced decreasing revenues. Additionally, Mondadori’s share in the Italian book publishing market shrank from ** percent in 2013 to **** percent in 2019. However, the publishing house remained the major player in the Italian market.

A market in deep crisis?

With its ** bookstores and seven mega stores, Mondadori operates nationwide in a very challenging sector, where only big chains and e-commerce perform well. In 2020, the lockdown and the following economic crisis induced by the coronavirus (COVID-19) disrupted the book market even more. The pandemic changed the scheduling of book releases and therefore their promotion, while influencing individuals’ reading habits. As a result, COVID-19 impacted heavily on the value of Italian bookstores’ sales.

In June 2025, the youth unemployment rate in Italy was 21.5 percent. The problem of unemployment in Italy became critical in the first years of the financial crisis, which started in 2008. Although the labor market crisis seriously affected the entire Italian working population, it particularly impacted the youngest part of the labor force. Between 2008 and 2014, the share of unemployed individuals aged between 15 and 24 years increased by more than 15 percentage points. However, a steady decline has been observed since 2014, with youth unemployment dropping at around 20 percent in 2024. The effects of the 2011-2012 financial crisis: dream job versus harsh reality Newly graduated and often looking for a first job, young people are particularly vulnerable to stagnation in the labor market. Considering the difficulties in finding a job during and after the years of the financial crisis, about 48 percent of young Italians declared in 2018 that they would accept a job that does not meet their career aspirations. One-fourth of the respondents stated that they would accept a monthly salary of 500 euros. Youth unemployment rate in the EUItaly was the country with the ninth-highest youth unemployment rate among the EU member states in August 2023. The country with the highest youth unemployment was Estonia, where more than one out of four young individuals were unemployed.

In 2024, the average monthly consumption expenditure of Italian households amounted to 2,775 euros, compared to 2,738 euros in 2023, the highest amount since at least 2008. The total annual consumption expenditure was 1.27 trillion euros, an increase compared to 2023. Personal care matters to Italians Interestingly enough, despite the economic crisis and the overall decline in households’ consumption expenditure between 2020 and 2021, Italians seemed to invest increasingly in their personal care. In fact, this expenditure category increased steadily since 2008 and reached a value of over 30.3 billion euros in 2022. Expenditure on financial services increasing after stagnation Italian households’ consumption expenditure on financial services amounted to almost 30 billion euros in 2008 and decreased to 19.4 billion euros in 2018. However, it increased after the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching 20.4 billion euros in 2022.

In 2020, 9.4 percent of individuals in Italy were living below the poverty line. Compared to the previous year, the share of people living in absolute poverty experienced a decrease. However, the lowest rates were registered in the years from 2008 to 2012, when the real impact of the 2008 financial crisis was yet to be recorded. In Italy, around one fifth of the entire population was consistently at risk of poverty between 2011 and 2019.

Demographics of poverty

Some groups are suffering more than others from lack of money and resources. Data in fact suggest that male individuals are slightly more likely to experience absolute poverty than females. Moreover, the incidence rates of absolute poverty in households with more family nuclei and couples with three or more children are much higher than the general average.

Geography of poverty

Poverty in Italy also depends on where one lives. In the North East and in the Center of the country, in fact, around 6.5 percent of the population lived below the absolute poverty line in 2018. On the other hand, the incidence rate of absolute poverty in Sicily and Sardinia was almost double, 12 percent, with other regions in the South also recording alarming rates.

In 2019, Assicurazioni Generali was Italy’s biggest insurance group with nearly ** billion euros of net assets. Today the insurance provider from Trieste operates primarily in Europe, Middle East and East Asia, and boasts large market shares in several countries. Generali is also the leading insurance provider in terms of number of employees. In fact, according to a similar ranking published in 2018, Generali employed over ** thousand individuals.

Assicurazioni Generali

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, Generali is the largest insurance group in Italy and among the largest worldwide. Founded in 1821 in Trieste, the insurance provider has expanded to become globally known in the insurance sector. In 2019, Generali reported gross written premiums totaling nearly ** billion euros and appeared in a ranking of the leading ten insurance companies worldwide in terms of revenue.

Insurance market in Italy

Despite periodical fluctuations due to the financial crisis of 2008, the insurance sector in Italy has grown overall in the past years. In 2018, gross written premiums in the country recorded the highest value since 2004, exceeding *** billion euros. The life insurance sector is far more important in Italy than the non-life insurance sector. In fact, in 2017, gross written premiums in the life sector were more than three times as high as those of the non-life sector.

Italy's unemployment rate was 6.6 percent in 2024, the lowest value since 2008. Forecasts suggest that it will stabilize around six percent between 2025 and 2027. The regions with the highest unemployment rates were in the south. Campania, Calabria, and Sicily registered rates from 16.1 percent to 17.8 percent, a large difference when compared to the northern regions, as only 2.9 percent of residents in Trentino-South Tyrol were unemployed, the lowest share nationwide. Young people mostly impacted Figures about the youth unemployment rate show that the financial crisis impacted the young working population significantly. Between 2004 and 2007, the share of unemployed individuals aged 15 to 24 years was declining. Subsequently, between 2008 and 2014, the rate almost doubled. In this case, southern regions had the largest share of young people without a job. In Sicily, Campania, and Calabria, more than one third of the population aged between 15 and 24 years was unemployed in 2022. Women more often unemployed In most of the Italian regions, the share of young unemployed women was higher than that of young males. In both Campania and Sicily, 50 percent of women aged 15 to 24 years did not have a job. Sicily was the region in Italy with the highest rate of unemployed young men. In this region, 51 percent of males were unemployed, almost five times more than in Trentino-South Tyrol, where the unemployment rate of young men stood at around nine percent.

With a Gross Domestic Product of over 4.3 trillion Euros, the German economy was by far the largest in Europe in 2024. The similarly sized economies of the United Kingdom and France were the second and third largest economies in Europe during this year, followed by Italy and Spain. The smallest economy in this statistic is that of the small Balkan nation of Montenegro, which had a GDP of 7.4 billion Euros. In this year, the combined GDP of the 27 member states that compose the European Union amounted to approximately 17.95 trillion Euros. The big five Germany’s economy has consistently had the largest economy in Europe since 1980, even before the reunification of West and East Germany. The United Kingdom, by contrast, has had mixed fortunes during the same period and had a smaller economy than Italy in the late 1980s. The UK also suffered more than the other major economies during the recession of the late 2000s, meaning the French economy was the second largest on the continent for some time afterward. The Spanish economy was continually the fifth-largest in Europe in this 38-year period, and from 2004 onwards, has been worth more than one trillion Euros. The smallest GDP, the highest economic growth in Europe Despite having the smallerst GDP of Europe, Montenegro emerged as the fastest growing economy in the continent, achieving an impressive annual growth rate of 4.5 percent, surpassing Turkey's growth rate of 4 percent. Overall,this Balkan nation has shown a remarkable economic recovery since the 2010 financial crisis, with its GDP projected to grow by 28.71 percent between 2024 and 2029. Contributing to this positive trend are successful tourism seasons in recent years, along with increased private consumption and rising imports. Europe's economic stagnation Malta, Albania, Iceland, and Croatia were among the countries reporting some of the highest growth rates this year. However, Europe's overall performance reflected a general slowdown in growth compared to the trend seen in 2021, during the post-pandemic recovery. Estonia experienced the sharpest negative growth in 2023, with its economy shrinking by 2.3% compared to 2022, primarily due to the negative impact of sanctions placed on its large neighbor, Russia. Other nations, including Sweden, Germany, and Finland, also recorded slight negative growth.

With a market share of over ** percent, the leading electronics retailer in Italy in 2018 was Media World, followed by Expert (*** percent) and Euronics (*** percent). In 2018, Media World registered a turnover of over * billion euros, while Expert and Euronics reported a turnover of *** and *** billion euros respectively. Moreover, the three retailers of consumer electronics also happen to be the leaders in the European market.

UniEuro: the Italian consumer electronics retailer

UniEuro is the largest Italian retailer of consumer electronics. Despite not appearing in the top three in this ranking, UniEuro came very close to the third place registering a turnover of **** billion euros in 2018. Moreover, the Italian retailer reported an average return on investment (ROI) of **** percent and an average return on equity (ROE) of over ** percent between 2015 and 2017.

Consumer electronics consumption in Italy

After suffering for a few years after the financial crisis of 2008, the consumption of consumer electronics in Italy experienced a new positive trend starting from 2015. The total annual consumption of consumer electronics reached over ** billion euros in 2016, in line with the values registered before 2010.

Euroscepticism, the political position which opposes European integration or proposes leaving the EU, peaked in the early 2010s during the period of the Eurozone crisis. Approval of the EU had been stable at a relatively high level in the 2000s, with around half of respondents having a positive image of the Union, before sharply dropping from 2010 onwards to under a third of respondents. In spite of the spike in negative attitudes towards the EU, the total share of respondents with a negative outlook never exceeded the share of those with a positive one. By 2020, disapproval of the EU was back down to below twenty percent, and has fallen further since. The share of respondents with a positive image of the bloc has risen back to pre-financial crisis levels, signifying a remarkable turnaround in the public image of the EU. Whether this reflects a secular trend, or is the result of the external shocks of Covid-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which have both forced the member states of the union to cooperate on further integration measures, is yet to be seen. The Eurozone Crisis and the rise of euroscepticism Euroscepticism in the 2010s was driven by a succession of crises in both the economic and political spheres, which were latched onto by populists of both the far-left and far-right. The Eurozone crisis was triggered in 2010 by financial market pressure on the heavily indebted countries on the EU's periphery who were also member of the Euro currency area (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, among others). The economies of these member states had suffered greatly during the global financial crisis and great recession, with the collapse of their housing markets and failure of their banking systems meaning that their governments had to take on increasing debt burdens. As it became clear that their debt levels were unsustainable, the yield on their government debt spiked, meaning that new borrowing became unaffordable. In most cases, the 'Troika' of the EU Commission, ECB, and IMF stepped in to provide bailouts, but with harsh austerity conditions which generated further unemployment and social discontent. The crisis was largely resolved by late 2012, as ECB chief Mario Draghi resolved to do "whatever it takes" to stabilize yields and to save the Euro. Nevertheless, Greece remained in deep trouble until after 2015, with question marks remaining about whether they would leave the Euro. Greece finally exited its Troika bailout program in 2018. Increasing migration flows and populist discontent While the Eurozone crisis was resolved (or at least delayed until a future date) by the middle of the decade, the populist political forces which it had unleashed began to have successes across the continent. The humanitarian crisis trigerred by the fleeing of millions of people from the war in Syria and other conflicts in the Middle East & North Africa towards Europe poured fuel on the fire of populism. Parties who opposed migration took power in Central & Eastern Europe, with Poland's Law and Justice Party and Hungary's Fidesz becoming some of the EU's biggest adversaries over the 2010s. Far-right parties in Western Europe such as the AfD in Germany, National Rally in France, Lega in Italy, PVV in the Netherlands, and Vox in Spain began to have unprecedented electoral success. These parties were buoyed by the Brexit referendum in the UK, where the populist challenger UKIP had forced the ruling Conservative Party to announce a vote on the UK's membership of the EU. With the referendum won by the 'leave' side, populist forces in other countries sought to capitalize on this momentum by entering government and, if not leaving the EU entirely, forcing changes to the way the union is run. While much ink was spilled over the threat this populist challenge posed to the EU, in many cases when populist parties entered government, such as Syriza in Greece and the Five Star Movement in Italy, they softened their tone towards leaving the union and focused rather on domestic politics than EU reform. Covid-19, Russia-Ukraine War, and the decline of euroscepticism? By the end of the decade of the 2010s, the populist and eurosceptic wave which had swept over the continent began to recede. Voters became dissatisfied with the achievements of many populist parties once they had entered office and a series of external shocks would further dampen the hostility towards the EU. The Covid-19 Pandemic struck in early 2020, and while the EU has been criticized for not having a united response to the crisis and being slow to organize the roll-out of vaccination programs, the pandemic focused populist energies towards anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination campaigns which targeted national governments rather than the EU. The pandemic also produced a "rally around the flag" effect, whereby the public approval of establishment forces which were seeking...

The gross domestic product (GDP) of all G7 countries decreased sharply in 2009 and 2020 due to the financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic, respectively. The growth decline was heavier after the COVID-19 pandemic than the financial crisis. Moreover, Italy had a negative GDP growth rate in 2012 and 2013 following the euro crisis. In 2023, Germany experienced an economic recession.

In 2024, the highest unemployment rate was registered in the south of Italy. For Campania, Calabria, and Sicily, the shares of citizens without a job ranged from 13 percent to 16 percent. The disparities in unemployment indicators can be observed not only on the regional level but also among genders. In 2024, 17 percent of women in Campania were without a job, whereas the share of unemployed males was less than 15 percent. The region with the highest percentage of employed individuals, both men and women, was Trentino-South Tyrol. Economic crisis in Italy Unemployment is a serious problem in Italy, which began to worsen alongside the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008. The crisis of the Italian labor market reached its peak in 2014, when 12.7 percent of the citizens were without a job. Since 2015, the situation has been improving; the unemployment rate started a steady decrease, which continued in the following years, reaching 6.6 percent in 2024.Unemployment in the EU In November 2024, Italy ranked 13th among the European Union member states with the highest unemployment rate. In Spain, more than eleven percent of all potential employees did not have any occupation.