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More young Italians create their own jobs

The Local Italy
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More young Italians create their own jobs
The young team behind Bulbo, a company which sells Italian-made lamps: (L-R) Lorenzo Antonioni, Tommaso Marzioni, Sara Pellegrini, Zeno Pasquini and Chiara Piovene. Photo: Bulbo

More enterprising young people are choosing to set up their own businesses in Italy, a report has revealed, with data showing that 33 percent of businesses started in the last nine months were founded by people under the age of 35.

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According to the study, conducted by Unioncamere and presented on Monday, of the 296,008 firms opened between January and the end of September, 100,321 are managed by one or more young person.

Most of these businesses (76.8 percent) are managed by one person, Unioncamere said.

A total of 38,608 (39 percent) were founded in southern Italy, the report said, with the city of Vibo Valentia in the southern region of Calabria recorded as having the highest levels of young entrepreneurial activity.

The north-eastern city of Trieste, meanwhile, has the lowest.

Commerce, construction and restoration were the most popular sectors, with each industry accounting for 20.5 percent, 9.4 percent and 5.6 percent respectively.

“There’s a generation of young people who are not resigned to leaving Italy to build a future,” Ferruccio Dardanello, President of Unioncamere, was quoted by La Repubblica newspaper as saying.

He described young people of today as a generation that “does not give up in protest, but rolls up their sleeves and faces tomorrow with courage”.

See also: Young Italians invent a bright future

Speaking to The Local earlier this month, Tommaso Marzioni, 27, who helped set up Bulbo, a company which sells Italian-made lamps designed for home farming, said: “We are going through a tough period in Italy in which the market in most sectors is slowing down...normal work is difficult to find and the pay is very low.”

“When you are forced to find solutions on your own, it’s then that you come up with the right thing to do.”

The latest figures from Unioncamere are also welcome news following the high unemployment figures released earlier this month, with youth unemployment surpassing the 40 percent mark, with the overall unemployment rate reverting to its highest level of 12.2 percent.

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