(ANSA) - ROME, JULY 12 - Between the last quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2021, the number of employees in Italy decreased by 2.8% with a sustained decline especially for the self-employed, down by 5.1%. This is what emerges from the INPS Annual Report according to which independent work suffered especially with the pandemic with a 5.1% decrease in employed persons and 9.8% in hours worked against an overall -7.7%. For employees, the decline was 2.1%. Layoffs, excluding disciplinary ones, have halved, going from an annual average of 560,000 in the 24 months preceding the pandemic to 230,000 between March 2020 and February 2021.
The jobs preserved with the freeze on layoffs in the period March 2020-February 2021 can be estimated at around 330,000 and for more than two thirds attributable to companies that have up to 15 employees. This is what emerges from the INPS Report presented today. Economic layoffs in the year of the pandemic were about half the average 560,000 of the previous two years. (HANDLE).