THE 25TH REPORT ON THE LABOUR MARKET AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING WAS APPROVED BY THE CNEL ASSEMBLY.
The document, voted unanimously, was prepared by the Information Commission chaired by Professor Michele Tiraboschi and formed by members representing the social partners at the CNEL.
The Report contains an account on the performance of the labour market and collective bargaining in 2023 and is introduced by a summary note that, in accordance with explicit legislative instructions, develops in shared terms a critical examination of the available data and their sources for the benefit not only of those working in the sector but also of the general public.
In drawing up the document, all the various public information sources were aggregated and discussed, and the impressive documentary and information heritage in the CNEL's National Archive of Collective Labour Agreements and Contracts was analysed.
As expressly indicated by the law, the report is now made “available to the Chambers, the Government, the trade unions and employers organisations, and the bodies and institutions concerned, as a common reference basis for study, decision-making and operational purposes”.
“This year's report”, comments the President of the CNEL Renato Brunetta, “fully expresses the institutional value of the task entrusted by law to CNEL, which has availed itself of the support and cooperation of the main public bodies in charge of statistical surveys and/or that collect and process administrative data on the subjects covered by the report. Among the issues highlighted by the Report is the presence in Italy of quite a few criticalities in the information and knowledge base currently available on many of the issues relating to the labour market and the functioning of our industrial relations system. This is a circumstance that calls for my personal commitment so that the CNEL can become the seat of discussion and collaboration, constant and continuous, between the social forces and all the institutional subjects, not only public, that collect useful data for the systematic monitoring of collective bargaining and the labour market. In fact, the effort to contribute to providing our country with complete and shared information on issues that are so central to the definition of employment and labour policies and laws on economic and social matters is fundamental”.
The main highlights.
LABOUR MARKET DYNAMICS
1) Employment without growth
In 2023 there was no growth in GDP in Italy equal to that of employment. In a context of modest growth, the number of employed persons (employees and self-employed) increased to reach 23.580 million with a rise also of female workers, which cannot yet be considered satisfactory and which, however, for the first time exceeds the 10 million share. Compared to that of the main European countries, the Italian labour market still presents significant criticalities, especially with reference to female and youth employment (among the lowest in Europe with a gap in 2023, respectively, of 13.7 and 16.2 percentage points with respect to the European average), to undeclared work rates (among the highest in Europe), to the employment of the vulnerable portion of the labour market and of persons with disabilities in particular.
2) Quality of employment: lights and shadows
During 2023, permanent employment increased (+491,000, i.e. +3.3% compared to 2022). Self-employed workers also increased. In contrast, temporary employment contracted, which, however, still affects a large number of about 3 million workers. The number of hours worked per employee also increased. In an overall picture of growth in permanent employment as captured by ISTAT and of a decreasing share of the stock of temporary employees , the flow data of compulsory communications provided by the Italian Ministry of Labour and Social Policies and referring to the entire 2023 inform us that there were 13.072 million activations of employment relationships, an increase of 3.5% compared to 2022, but of these, only 17.2% were permanent (including apprenticeship) while 82.8% were temporary contracts (fixed-term contract, collaboration contract, on-call work, staff leasing). Employment relationships terminated in 2023 with a duration of no more than 30 days accounted for 34.4% of the total number of relationships terminated, a percentage that was up on 2022 (33.8%). Alongside this, there is also a trend to transform fixed-term contracts into permanent contracts (1.4%) on an annual basis.
3) Underuse of the labour force: female employment and territorial gaps
The employment rate remains one of the main critical issues in the Italian labour market. Compared to the European average, with reference to the fourth quarter of 2023, the employment rate is in fact 8.5 percentage points lower, which becomes 12.7 in relation to the female component. The employment rate calculated on average for 2023 (ISTAT) is 70.4 for men and 52.5 for women. The gap is also very high in the inactivity rate, which is 24% for men and 41.5% for women. Equally critical is the trend in employment rates if read from a territorial perspective, with an employment rate of 69.8% in Northern Italy, 66.1% in Central Italy and 48.6% in Southern Italy. Overall, the unused but potentially employable labour force in the production system amounts to about 4 million people, considering 1.9 million unemployed and 2.1 million potential labour force (ISTAT, fourth quarter 2023, age group 15-74). The high number of inactive Italians is of particular concern: 12.3 million in the working-age group, or 33.1% of the reference population.
4) Young people and work
With regard to young people and the labour market, one of the most significant figures, which can also be explained by the shrinking youth population, is the reduction in the number of NEETs (young people between 15 and 29 who are not working and not in school or training) from 1.5 million in fourth quarter 2022 to 1.3 million in fourth quarter 2023. It is also significant that the employment rate among 25–34-year-olds increased from 66.1% in 2022 to 68.1% in 2023, while the respective inactivity rate decreased from 25.4% to 24% over the same period. For the 15-24 age group, the employment rate increased from 19.8% in 2022 to 20.4% in 2023, while the respective inactivity rate decreased from 74% to 73.6% over the same period. With regard to youth employment, however, there are still significant critical issues related to the excessively long duration of the transition from school to work, the improper use of traineeships and extracurricular internships, the absence of consolidated dual training and work paths, the low use of apprenticeships, the high work discontinuity and forms of employment masquerading as self-employment.
5) Disability and work
The relationship between disability and work - and the functioning of targeted employment - is one of the main critical issues in our labour market. According to the latest ISTAT 2022 survey, out of a population of about 3 million people with disabilities with serious functional limitations in their usual activities, those to be considered of working age are about 900,000. In contrast, persons with disabilities with non-serious functional limitations of working age number over 4 million. It is easy to see how the disability hiring quotas under Law 68 of 1999, although fundamental, is not able to absorb the vast supply of those registered in the targeted employment. Even today, access to full employment is strongly precluded for those with a disability condition and integration is even more difficult if one is a woman and lives in southern Italy. Out of an Italian population of over 5 million people with disabilities (counting severe and less severe disabilities) only 12% are employed.
6) Health and work
According to INAIL, the number of occupational illnesses reported to INAIL during 2023 increased (+12 thousand, almost 20%). In contrast, accidents reported to INAIL during 2023 were down 16% compared to 2022 (-112 thousand). At the national level, the data show a decline, in particular, in the reporting of accidents occurring at work. Focusing on fatal cases reported to INAIL, provisional data for 2023 show a decrease of 4.5% compared to the previous year, from 1,090 to 1,041. Accidents while commuting fell from 300 to 242, while those at work increased by 9 cases from 790 to 799.
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
7) Wage issue and minimum contract term
In 2023, hourly wages set by national bargaining increased by 2.4% in the non-agricultural private sector and by 3.1% in the economy as a whole. Compared to the increase in inflation in 2023 (at 5.9% CPI) the growth of hourly wages was still lower, although there are signs of a gradual catching-up of the adjustment of wages to inflation. In any case, it should be noted that real wages remained essentially stagnant between 1991 and 2022 (1% growth) compared to 32.55% on average in the OECD area.
8) Enterprise and productivity
Although aware of the difficulties of calculation, especially in the tertiary sector where there is no objective reference to the good produced, hourly productivity remains an important parameter for international comparison. In this sense, a comparison with the wages of countries with a tax wedge in line - or even higher - than ours clearly shows how Italian productivity has not grown in recent decades, unlike in France and Germany. Before the pandemic crisis, between 2000 and 2020, productivity increased by only 0.33% per year on average in our country, compared to 1% in Germany and 0.94% in France.
9) Incentive measures for productivity bargaining and so-called corporate welfare
The absence of systematic and qualitative monitoring makes it impossible to assess the effectiveness or otherwise of public measures to support productivity bargaining and so-called corporate welfare. Since this is a crucial issue for the proper functioning of our industrial relations system and in view of the substantial public resources earmarked for this purpose, the CNEL approved the launch of two sample
surveys: one on company productivity bargaining and the other on so-called corporate welfare with particular reference to complementary social security, supplementary health care and the subject of long-term care in the credit sector.
10) Dynamics of collective bargaining and company crises
Using the Uniemens flow data (as the average of the twelve-monthly statements made during the year by employers to INPS) and the CNEL alphanumeric code of national collective labour agreements, it is possible to indicate the rate of coverage of national collective bargaining. With reference to the national contracts filed with CNEL on 31 December 2023, the coverage rate is 98.7% of private sector employees (excluding “agriculture” and “domestic and care work”) surveyed by INPS by means of the Uniemens flow, and 93% of public sector employees surveyed by the State General Accounting (Ragioneria Generale dello Stato) through the Annual Account of Public Administrations. With reference only to National Collective Labour Agreements, 1033 were deposited and in force, as of 31 December 2023, of which 971 related to the private sector (including “agriculture” and “domestic and care work”), 18 to the public sector and 44 collective economic agreements concerning certain categories of self-employed and para-subordinate workers. In particular, between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023, 202 agreements renewing or updating specific clauses of 171 between National Labour Collective Agreements (private and public sector) and collective economic agreements were signed. Excluding the contractual sectors covered only partially (agriculture) or not at all (domestic and care work) by Uniemens, thanks to the evolution of the CNEL archive and the collaboration with INPS it is possible to highlight how the 28 National Labour Collective Agreements in the private sector with application above 100,000 employees, although representing only 3.2% of the contracts deposited in the archive, cover more than 11 million workers, or 78.3% of the employee workforce traceable in Uniemens flows.
Looking at the Uniemens data, it emerges that the 102 National Labour Collective Agreements with application above 10,000 employees cover almost all employees in the private sector: 13,929,931 workers, or 96.8% of the private sector workforce tracked by Uniemens (excluding agriculture and domestic work). Notably, 622 National Labour Collective Agreements (70.5%) apply to less than 500 employees and, in total, cover 0.4% of employees.
As for the signatories, on the trade union side, it should be noted that of the 882 National Labour Collective Agreements in the private sector filed as at 31 December 2023 (excluding the agriculture and domestic and care work sectors, for which, as mentioned above, data are not recorded through the Uniemens information flow), 201, representing 13,858,739 workers, are signed by the most representative trade federations belonging to CGIL, CISL, UIL; 285, representing 158,612 workers, are signed by trade unions not represented at the CNEL. 96.3% of private sector workers with a known National Labour Collective Agreement (again excluding the agricultural sector and the domestic sector) are covered by a National Labour Collective Agreement signed by trade federations adhering to CGIL, CISL, UIL.
These data show, overall, a good state of health of our industrial relations system with a generalised application of collective agreements and with contractual dynamics still largely governed by confederal unions, even if the causes of the phenomenon of contractual dumping remain to be investigated. There is undoubtedly an increase in the number of contracts filed with the CNEL - and the phenomenon must be carefully monitored - but, looking at the magnitude in terms of workers and companies to which these contracts actually apply, it is possible to state that there are 100 main National Labour Collective Agreements in Italy, in meaning that these 100 Agreements, which have CGIL, CISL, UIL as signatories on the trade union side, regulate almost all labour relations in the private sector.
Finally, with respect to national-level collective bargaining, the serious problem of delays in contract renewals persists, even though the recent signing of three of the four main contracts in the tertiary sector has made it possible to significantly (but not yet sufficiently) reduce the number of workers impacted by this phenomenon in terms of protection of purchasing power. According to data compiled from the national archive of collective agreements, the total number of workers awaiting renewal is now (at the date of publication of the report) about 5 million (in 2023 there were about 7.7 million).
The document (italian language):