The professional category that has been most affected by Covid are the VAT numbers, self-employed workers, artisans, merchants, small traders and freelancers registered in the orders or at the cash registers. In the last two years this population of micro-entrepreneurs, the world of independent work, has significantly thinned: in fact, 321,000 workers are missing.
If in February 2020 (pre-pandemic month) the total stock amounted to 5,194,000, last December (latest data available) it fell to 4,873,000 units (-6.2%). This is said by the Cgia Studies Office which processed the employment data presented in recent days by Istat.
In this period of pandemic, however, the trend in the number of employees has improved. Still in the same period, the audience increased by 34 thousand units (+ 0.2%), although it should be noted that people with a permanent contract decreased by 98 thousand units (-0.6%), while those with a fixed-term employment relationship increased by 133,000 (+ 4.5%).
However, it should be noted, a note states, that the contraction in the number of self-employed workers began well before the advent of Covid. In fact, since 2015, the maximum number was reached in June 2016, when these micro-entrepreneurs had reached 5,428,000. Subsequently there was a tendency to decline until it reached the historic low reached last December: 4,873,000 units. It should also be noted that, with the advent of Covid, the number of self-employed workers and employees plummeted in the first six months of 2020.
Subsequently, the employees have risen, until reaching the same level before the start of the pandemic, while the self-employed, on the other hand, have recovered since the summer and then decreased to a very worrying extent until the end of the year. If, therefore, in the first part of 2021 there was a slight recovery, then there was a sinusoidal trend which, in December, brought the number of self-employed people to the lowest level ever reached before.
The pandemic crisis and the consequent limitations to mobility, the drop in consumption, taxes and the surge in the cost of rents are the main causes that have forced many VAT numbers to permanently close the business. In addition, dear energy has also been felt in recent months. In fact, electricity and gas bills have risen sharply.
Furthermore, according to the CGIA, after the commercial policies of large-scale distribution and the boom in online sales have become increasingly targeted and aggressive in the last 10 years, for many artisans and as many small traders there has been no escape, the only solution was to definitively throw in the towel.
Cgia asks both Premier Draghi and the governors to open a permanent crisis table at national and local level. It is also necessary, it is stated, to involve the Ministry of Education so that it activates as soon as possible an important information / training action towards high school students that makes them aware of the importance of self-employment.