From 2008 to 2010 the recession will cost Italy one million jobs, says the industrial employers association Confindustria. According to a report compiled by Confindustria, Italy’s unemployment rate, currently estimated at 8.6, will hit 9.3 percent in 2010, the highest since 2000. Most of the job losses will occur in the second half of 2009, the association projects.
Although bleak, the Confindustria employment forecast was more optimistic than that issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which predicts that Italy’s unemployment rate will reach the 10 percent mark in 2009 and rise even higher in 2010.
Italy’s gross domestic product (GDP), Confindustria said, will likely fall by 4.9 percent in 2009 but increase slightly, by 0.7 percent, in 2010. The recently recorded drops in the GDP should start to level off in the second half of 2009, as exports are expected to pull Italy out of the recession, Confindustria forecasts.
