Italian employment rises to 24 million 447,000 in the second quarter, unemployment falls to 5.9%
Istat data on the labour force, published on 22 September, show employment growth of 246,000 units compared with a year earlier and a decline in the number of unemployed of 167,000 people.
Istat published on 22 September, in the labour force survey relating to the second quarter of 2026, a picture of improving employment: the number of employed people in Italy rose to 24 million 447,000, an increase of 246,000 units, equal to +1%, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
The employment rate among those aged 15 to 64 rose to 63.4%, 0.7 points higher year-on-year. On the opposite front, the unemployment rate fell to 5.9%, with a decline of 167,000 people looking for work over twelve months.
The comparison interval stated by the source is the annual one: every variation — the 246,000 more employed, the 167,000 fewer unemployed, the 0.7 points of the employment rate — is calculated against the second quarter of 2025, not against the previous quarter nor against a longer historical series.
The data comes from the labour force survey, the quarterly survey through which Istat measures employment and unemployment in Italy; the available sources do not specify, for this publication, the sample size of the survey nor any revisions made to the series compared with the surveys of previous quarters. It is also not specified, in the available data, whether the quarter’s improvement is distributed evenly across the country’s different areas.
The picture that emerges from the second quarter 2026 data alone is one of a labour market with more employed and fewer unemployed people than a year earlier: 24 million 447,000 employed, an employment rate of 63.4%, an unemployment rate of 5.9%.
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