In the first quarter of the year, self-employed workers fell below 5 million. According to the latest Istat survey, there are about 4.9 million, which did not happen since the beginning of the historical series of the same Institute of Statistics. Compared to the first quarter of 2020, independents decreased by 6%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2020 by 2%, equal to 99 thousand positions.
Above all, full-time positions have collapsed, and the self-employed without employees, therefore above all young people at the beginning of the activity. The contraction of independent employees also continued in April: according to the provisional monthly data, again from Istat, the decline in March was 30 thousand units.
The change in employment estimates
According to experts, in part, this photograph was also affected by the change in employment estimates in compliance with the new EU rules. In practice, from January 1st, self-employed workers are not considered employed if the absence from work exceeds 3 months, even if the activity is only temporarily suspended.
In summary, the total duration of absence from work (more or less than 3 months – a rule that also applies to dependent employment) becomes the prevailing criterion for defining the condition of employed. And given the months of lockdown, more or less hard, many self-employed may not have worked for three months (and therefore are counted as not employed).
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The impact of the crisis
Net of the change in the statistical rules, it is a fact that the crisis has severely affected self-employment. The main emergency measures, blocking of layoffs and Cig Covid-19, have no effect on this segment of the labor market, aiming exclusively at protecting employee employment.
For VAT numbers, professionals, self-employed collaborators, temporary economic aid has been put in place, with previous government decrees. But despite this, many artisans, merchants, small traders, freelancers and self-employed workers did not make it and were forced to throw in the towel for good.
The lack of regulatory safeguards
Staying on the job level, smart working, for example, in self-employment is entirely at the expense of the professional, and in recent months there has been a drastic decline in incomes, especially among the youngest. Not only.
All four proxies provided by the Jobs act of self-employment of 2017, to expand the protections and extend welfare measures to professionals and VAT numbers, have expired amid the general indifference of politics. Also according to the experts, they would have been useful measures, especially today to safeguard more and better in the first place the autonomous female employment.
The debate on self-employed shock absorbers
The issue of scarce employment coverage for the self-employed is back on the political agenda with the shock absorber reform, first with the technicians nominated by Nunzia Catalfo, then with the current Minister of Labor, Andrea Orlando, who announced it for July. Both, after the ISCRO, introduced for the employees of the separate Inps management, proposed to extend the subsidies to the world of independent work. At the moment, however, a concrete proposal is not known, also due to the costs subject to comparison with the Ministry of Economy.
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