Every month
Italy's labour market in numbers, explained simply
Every month Istat, the Italian national statistics institute, publishes data on employment and unemployment. Here are the main figures and how to read them without being carried away by the headline.
Latest update: August 2026 data (Istat release of 1 October 2026). Next Istat release: 29 October 2026.The August 2026 numbers
Unemployment rate
+0.2 points on the previous month
More people employed than a year ago
August 2026 vs August 2025
Employment rate
people aged 15-64 who are working
Unemployment among 15-24 year-olds
out of 100 young people who work or look for work
More people looking for work
in a year (+8.8%)
Inactive people aged 15-64
in a year (-3.0%)
How do they fit together? Unemployment rises and the number of employed people grows. One possible reading: more people are coming back to look for work (the inactive are falling), and this pushes the unemployment rate up even though employment is increasing.
By type of contract
Employed people, August 2026 vs August 2025.
Permanent employees
+2.3%
Self-employed workers
+1.5%
Fixed-term employees
-6.2%
By age
Employed people, August 2026 vs August 2025.
Aged 50 and over
+3.6%
Aged 35 to 49
-1.4%, observed figure
Aged 35 to 49, net of demographics
change adjusted for the ageing of the population
Why two different figures? Istat points out that part of the change depends on the ageing of the population. That is why, next to the observed figure, it publishes the one net of the demographic component.
Three checks before commenting on a figure
- Is it monthly or yearly? The comparison with the previous month and the one with the same month a year earlier can tell different stories.
- Is it seasonally adjusted? Istat's monthly figures are corrected for the effect of the seasons.
- Has it been revised? Istat revises the data every month: the value of a month can change in the next release.
And your job, where does it sit in these numbers?
Average figures do not tell you where you stand. In 30 minutes, one to one, we work out where to restart from and how AI can speed you up.
Source: Istat, release "Occupati e disoccupati" (Employment and unemployment), August 2026 (provisional, seasonally adjusted data), published on 1 October 2026. Read the release (in Italian). The interpretations are mine and do not replace reading the release.