L’economia del virus Covid-19: innovazioni e criticità nel mercato del lavoro e nelle forme dell’occupazione in Italia

The Covid-19 crisis in Italy affected an already problematic situation, with production activities and work under transition, long-lasting welfare crisis and social fragmentation. The pandemic produced around 600 thousand of job losses, the unemployed rate increased but less than predictable, thanks to the ban of dismissal decided by the Italian government at the start of the emergency and extended until the end of March 2021. The most part of job cuts involved fix term employed, therefore the young component of workforce. The Italian government tried to tackle the crisis effects protecting jobs and citizens’ economic conditions through the extension of lay-off schemes and some economic compensations for self-employed and small economic activities. The pandemic crisis forced a wide extension of smart work in the private and public sectors, which involved around 7-8 million people during the hardest lockdown period (March-April 2020) and represents a sort of experiment towards its institutionalisation.