These are the chiaroscuro of employment in Sardinia: in the first half of 2023 the net activations - i.e. the balance between new contracts and terminations - exceeded the level reached in the same period of 2022. But compared to last year, a further increase was recorded of fixed-term hiring. The numbers are contained in the November update by Bankitalia which reworked the Rfl, the Istat survey on the workforce.

A premise is needed to analyze the Sardinian trend: on the island, every year, the employment trend is affected by the "dirty" data of tourism which on the one hand breaks up the asphyxiated job offer, but on the other concentrates all the precariousness. This is why only from October, when the sun & sea season is well and truly over, can the impact of the holiday industry on the regional labor economy be precisely calculated.

Data analysis is precisely the story of this dynamic in numbers. In fact: compared to the 54,909 activations that were counted from January to June 2023, 37,302 took shape in the tourism sector. They are equivalent to 67.93 percent. But, as we said, the majority of the hirings, equal to 50,824, were on a fixed-term basis. We are traveling on Bulgarian percentages, at 92.56. It means that the contracts of more than nine out of 10 workers have expired. For all of them, the race towards the security of a fixed salary must start again next year.

The second sector that has collected the most activations, although with numbers very distant from tourism, is classified by Bankitalia as "Other services": 9,614 new contracts from January to June 2023, with a weight of 17.5 percent of the total. This is followed by commerce, with 4,242 activations (7.72%), and industry in the strict sense, with 2,388 (4.34%). Finally, construction, at 1,363 (2.48%).

Compared to the 54,909 new contracts in the first half of 2023, the certainty of a permanent position was secured by just 3,573 workers. They represent 6.5 percent of the hirings made. Apprenticeship contracts had a marginal impact: 512 activations, which overall were worth 0.93 percent.

In the first half of 2022 things went differently: it is true that the net activations were 2,816 fewer, stopping at 52,093, but their conversion into permanent contracts was greater. The certainty of a job was achieved by 4,291 workers who accounted for 8.23 percent of the total. The difference with 2023 is almost two percentage points . Last year the number of fixed-term contracts was almost one and a half points lower, at 47,491. The number of apprenticeships is even lower: 311, equal to 0.59 percent. In the breakdown by sectors, tourism reigned supreme even a year ago: 33,473 activations, followed by "Other services" (9,493) and trade (3,779). Then construction (3,204) and industry in the strict sense (2,144).

We read in the Bank of Italy report on Sardinia: «In the first half of the current year the number of employed people increased, but only the fixed-term component contributed to this variation, while the creation of permanent positions was lower than that of 2022". Overall, the activity rate, i.e. the ratio between the population of working age and that of those aged 15 and over, is almost unchanged, a value that allows us to estimate the level of propensity for employment. In the first quarter of 2022 the activity rate was at 61, this year at 61.9. From April to June, the value was 63.4 in 2022, 62.3 this year.

On the other hand: although 2023 saw a greater growth in fixed-term work, statistics show that the employment rate improved: 54.3 in the first quarter of the year, 55.9 in the second. In 2022 the same data were worth 52.9 and 55.8 respectively. But it is still written in the Bankitalia report: « In the first half of 2023 employment in Sardinia grew with a lower intensity both compared to the corresponding period of the previous year and in comparison with the national data: on the average of the year during the course the increase was 0.9, while in the rest of the country it was 2". Again: «The sustained increase in the first quarter, equal to 2.3 percent, was followed by a slight decline in the second, with -0.5». As for the unemployment rate, from January to March 2023 it was 12.2, from April to June it was 10. In 2022, the two values were 13 and 11.7.

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