The crisis and labour market reform in Italy: a regional analysis of the Jobs Act

The crisis that struck in 2008 has led to the development of a process of ‘dual polarisation’ in Europe. On the one hand, divergence has grown between the economies of the ‘centre’ – in particular, Germany and the Member States in its productive network –and the ‘periphery’ of the EU – particularly the economies of the Mediterranean area – with the former conserving and, in some cases, increasing their productive capacity and the latter, in contrast, suffering considerable setbacks both in terms of production and employment. On the other hand, divergence between regions within individual European economies has also increased. This phenomenon has affected the peripheral economies in particular, including those already characterised by strong regional differences such as Italy (on this question, see the analyses by Mazzucato et al. 2015; Cirillo and Guarascio 2014, 2015; Guarascio and Simonazzi 2016; Dosi and Guarascio 2016; Sedezzari 2014; Lucchese et al. 2016). In Italy, where there was a generalised reduction in productive capacity and a significant rise in unemployment nationally, the decline observed in the southern regions was greater than in the rest of the economy.